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For hundreds of years, Adélie penguins have been breeding in the West Antarctic Peninsula, which has recently become one of the most rapidly warming areas on Earth. There were 15,000 breeding pairs of Adélie penguins in 1975 but today only a few thousand pairs are left. In a new study, University of Delaware oceanographers consider whether Adélie penguins and gentoo penguins--newcomers to the Palmer Station region over the last two decades--may be competing for the same food resources and whether this might exacerbate the Adélie population decline.
To test whether the species were competing, the researchers tagged penguins with small satellite transmitters and depth recorders to track where the penguins went and how deep they were diving.Image credit: University of Delaware/Megan Cimino
