Dynamic emperor penguin colonies

Understanding how species respond to environmental change is critical for predicting their resilience to future climate impacts. For emperor penguins, relocation of breeding colonies may provide an important mechanism for coping with changing sea ice conditions. Using medium and very high-resolution satellite imagery, we study penguin colony locations in West Antarctica and show that five colonies have moved significant distances over the last decade. Two colonies are likely to be relocations due to recent ice shelf calving events. One is a newly discovered colony that archival imagery shows has been extant for several decades, but has moved considerably over that time period. The other two are new colonies that have recently formed. The colony movements inform us of how colony locations can change with changing regional fast ice conditions and ice shelf calving events. We discuss the movement of these colonies, the implications for the wider metapopulation, and our understanding of emperor penguins’ colony dispersal, concluding that emperor penguins make informed decisions on colony location when changing environmental conditions force colony movement.