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Late Holocene variation in the Hard prey remains and stable isotope values of penguin and seal tissues from the Danger Islands, Antarctica

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Abstract

Ornithogenic soils in Antarctica provide a biological archive of the occupation history and trophic ecology of penguins and other marine species over geological timescales. Hard prey remains and predator tissues, which are well preserved in ornithogenic soils, can act as paleoecological proxies of past environmental conditions. Here we examine ornithogenic soils from an active colony of Pygoscelis spp. penguins on Platter Island in the Danger Islands Archipelago along the northeastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. We radiocarbon dated penguin tissues from excavated ornithogenic soils and parameterized an age-depth model of penguin occupation history. Hard prey remains were enumerated and recovered Pygoscelis spp. penguin and Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) tissues were analyzed for stable isotopes carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) analysis. The oldest recovered ornithogenic soils at Platter Island date to 502–653 years BP and coincide with the start of a period of increased warming and glacial discharge in the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula. Penguin tissues δ15N values increased between the oldest and youngest dated ornithogenic soils but seal tissues did not. This may indicate that the trophic level of penguins, but not seals, has increased over time, a hypothesis supported by the concurrent increase in the hard prey remains of fish and squid taxa common to penguin diets recovered from ornithogenic soils. Future studies of ornithogenic soils in the Danger Islands Archipelago are warranted to test this hypothesis and assess the potential confounding effects of varying ecosystem isotopic baselines and penguin species composition over time.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in U.S. Antarctic Program Data Center at https://doi.org/10.15784/601364

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Dalio Explore Fund which financed the Danger Island Expedition and the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (ANT-1443585) for their support for data analysis. Thank you to the crew of the yacht M/V Hans Hansson D. Poncet, J. Hannequinn, A. Hazell and G. Hazell and to T. Hart, S. Jenouvrier, H. Lynch, H. Singh, A. Borowicz, P. McDowall, C. Youngflesh, T. Sayre-McCord, S. Forrest, and M. Rider for their assistance during the expedition. Thank you to W. Walker for assistance with hard prey remain identification and T. Mauney for assistance with stable isotope analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70802, USA

    Rohit Kalvakaalva, Rachael W. Herman & Michael J. Polito

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK

    Gemma Clucas

  3. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

    Gemma Clucas

  4. Department of Ecology and Evolution, 113 Life Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA

    Rachael W. Herman

  5. Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Michael J. Polito

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  1. Rohit Kalvakaalva
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Kalvakaalva, R., Clucas, G., Herman, R.W. et al. Late Holocene variation in the Hard prey remains and stable isotope values of penguin and seal tissues from the Danger Islands, Antarctica. Polar Biol 43, 1571–1582 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02728-w

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