WELLINGTON, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- While the emperor penguin could be extinct by the end of the century due to climate change, new research published on Thursday showed that this bird species around Antarctica form colonies in a surprising diversity of environmental conditions.
Record-breaking sea ice lows around Antarctica have raised serious concerns about the future of emperor penguins, as the birds use the ice sheets to breed and raise their chicks.
A global research team, including New Zealand, Australian and French scientists, has found that different penguin colonies actually have quite different habitats and therefore will not all be equally affected as the ice shrinks away due to warming seas under climate change, said the study published in the journal of Science Advances.
Until now, it was thought that emperor penguins only needed "fast ice" such as the coastal sea ice that is attached to the Antarctic continent or ice shelves, but emperor penguins actually inhabit locations with various characteristics, with differences in the timing of ice formation, how much ice forms and breaks, and even how close they get to other penguin species, the study said.
"Given projections of future sea ice changes and recent studies, if fast ice disappears, 90 percent of colonies will be extinct," said Sara Labrousse, lead author of the study and researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
However, certain populations may be able to survive in certain conditions and others not, Labrousse said.
Only drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions could prevent the loss of emperor penguins by the end of the century, the study said, adding fishing should be prevented from occurring in the areas where climate change will have the most impact, such as Antarctica. ■
