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Species with similar ecological requirements that overlap in range tend to segregate their niches to minimize competition for resources. However, the niche segregation possibilities for centrally foraging predators that breed on isolated Subantarctic islands may be reduced by spatial constraints and limitations in the availability of alternative prey. In this study we examined spatial and trophic aspects of the foraging niches of two sympatrically breeding penguin species, macaroni (Eudyptes chrysolophus; MAC) and chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarcticus; CHIN) penguins, at Bouvetøya over two breeding seasons. To measure at-sea movements and diving behaviour, 90 MACs and 49 CHINs were equipped with GPS loggers and dive recorders during two austral summer breeding seasons (2014/15 and 2017/18). In addition, blood samples from tracked birds were analysed for stable isotopes to obtain dietary information. CHINs displayed marked interannual variation in foraging behaviour, diving deeper, utilizing a larger foraging area and displaying enriched values of δ15N in 2014/15 compared to the 2017/18 breeding season. In contrast, MACs dove to similar depths and showed similar δ15N values, while consistently utilizing larger foraging areas compared to CHINs. We suggest that low krill abundances in the waters around Bouvetøya during the 2014/15 season resulted in CHINs shifting toward a diet that increased their niche overlap with MACs. Our findings may partly explain the decreasing number of breeding CHINs at the world’s most remote island, Bouvetøya, while also highlighting the importance of characterizing niche overlap of species using multi-season data sets.

Krillscan software was developed to automatically process echosounder data and achieve an accelerated and transparent analysis of backscatter data that allows calculation of target biomass. Herein, the fishery for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba, Henceforth Krill) was used as a case study to develop the approach. Implementation of a sustainable management strategy for the krill fishery is complicated by a lack of regularly updated krill abundance data on spatiotemporal scales of the fishery. To increase krill biomass data availability, automatic echosounder data processing and swarm detection software was tested against traditional manual scrutinization with LSSS software and agreed with only minor offsets in estimated nautical area scattering coefficients. In addition to automatic processing and data transfer, Krillscan also has a graphical user interface to supervise automatic krill swarm detection. Echogram size can be compressed up to 100 times and raw data are processed faster than generated, thereby enabling near-real time analysis and data transfer. Compressed data can be transmitted online to allow fishing vessels to conduct surveys without having scientific personnel with special expertise on board.

Abstract Information on marine predator at-sea distributions is key to understanding ecosystem and community dynamics and an important component of spatial management frameworks that aim to identify regions important for conservation. Tracking data from seabirds are widely used to define priority areas for conservation, but such data are often restricted to the breeding population. This also applies to penguins in Antarctica, where identification of important habitat for nonbreeders has received limited attention. Nonbreeding penguins are expected to have larger foraging distributions than breeding conspecifics, which may alter their interactions with physical environmental factors, conspecifics, other marine predators, and threats. We studied the movement behavior of nonbreeding Adélie penguins tracked during the 2016/2017 breeding season at King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. We quantify how nonbreeding penguins' horizontal moment behavior varies in relation to environmental conditions and assess the extent of spatial overlap in the foraging ranges of nonbreeders and breeders, which were tracked over several years. Nonbreeders increased their prey search and area-restricted foraging behavior as sea surface temperature and bottom depths decreased, and in response to increasing sea ice concentration. Nonbreeders tended to transit (high directional movement) over the relatively deep Central Basin of the Bransfield Strait. The majority of foraging behavior occurred within the colder, Weddell Sea?sourced water of the Antarctic Coastal Current (incubation) and in the Weddell Sea (crèche). The utilization distributions of breeders and nonbreeders overlapped in the central Bransfield Strait. Spatial segregation was greater during the crèche stage of breeding compared to incubation and brood, because chick provisioning still constrained the foraging range of breeders to a scale of a few tens of kilometers, while nonbreeders commenced with premolt foraging trips into the Weddell Sea. Our results show that breeding and nonbreeding penguins may not be impacted similarly by local environmental variability, given that their spatial and temporal scales of foraging differ during some part of the austral summer. Our study highlights the need to account for different life history stages when characterizing foraging behavior of marine predator populations. This is particularly important for ?sentinel? species monitored as part of marine conservation and ecosystem-based management programs.

Marine predators are integral to the functioning of marine ecosystems, and their consumption requirements should be integrated into ecosystem-based management policies. However, estimating prey consumption in diving marine predators requires innovative methods as predator-prey interactions are rarely observable. We developed a novel method, validated by animal-borne video, that uses tri-axial acceleration and depth data to quantify prey capture rates in chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica). These penguins are important consumers of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), a commercially harvested crustacean central to the Southern Ocean food web. We collected a large data set (n = 41 individuals) comprising overlapping video, accelerometer and depth data from foraging penguins. Prey captures were manually identified in videos, and those observations were used in supervised training of two deep learning neural networks (convolutional neural network (CNN) and V-Net). Although the CNN and V-Net architectures and input data pipelines differed, both trained models were able to predict prey captures from new acceleration and depth data (linear regression slope of predictions against video-observed prey captures = 1.13; R2 approximate to 0.86). Our results illustrate that deep learning algorithms offer a means to process the large quantities of data generated by contemporary bio-logging sensors to robustly estimate prey capture events in diving marine predators.

Antarctic krill <i>Euphausia superba</i>, a keystone species in the Southern Ocean, is highly relevant for studying effects of climate-related shifts on management systems. Krill provides a key link between primary producers and higher trophic levels and supports the largest regional fishery. Any major perturbation in the krill population would have severe ecological and economic ramifications. We review the literature to determine how climate change, in concert with other environmental changes, alters krill habitat, affects spatial distribution/abundance, and impacts fisheries management. Findings recently reported on the effects of climate change on krill distribution and abundance are inconsistent, however, raising questions regarding methods used to detect changes in density and biomass. One recent study reported a sharp decline in krill densities near their northern limit, accompanied by a poleward contraction in distribution in the Southwest Atlantic sector. Another recent study found no evidence of long-term decline in krill density or biomass and reported no evidence of a poleward shift in distribution. Moreover, with predicted decreases in phytoplankton production, vertical foraging migrations to the seabed may become more frequent, also impacting krill production and harvesting. Potentially cumulative impacts of climate change further compound the management challenge faced by CCAMLR, the organization responsible for conservation of Antarctic marine living resources: to detect changes in the abundance, distribution, and reproductive performance of krill and krill-dependent predator stocks and to respond to such change by adjusting its conservation measures. Based on CCAMLR reports and documents, we review the institutional framework, outline how climate change has been addressed within this organization, and examine the prospects for further advances toward ecosystem risk assessment and an adaptive management system.

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations.

Southern Ocean ecosystems are under pressure from resource exploitation and climate change1,2. Mitigation requires the identification and protection of Areas of Ecological Significance (AESs), which have so far not been determined at the ocean-basin scale. Here, using assemblage-level tracking of marine predators, we identify AESs for this globally important region and assess current threats and protection levels. Integration of more than 4,000 tracks from 17 bird and mammal species reveals AESs around sub-Antarctic islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and over the Antarctic continental shelf. Fishing pressure is disproportionately concentrated inside AESs, and climate change over the next century is predicted to impose pressure on these areas, particularly around the Antarctic continent. At present, 7.1% of the ocean south of 40°S is under formal protection, including 29% of the total AESs. The establishment and regular revision of networks of protection that encompass AESs are needed to provide long-term mitigation of growing pressures on Southern Ocean ecosystems.