Penguins: Diversity, Threats, and Role in Marine Ecosystems
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Penguins: Diversity, Threats, and Role in Marine Ecosystems José C. Xavier1,2 and Phil N. Trathan2 1 University of Coimbra, Marine and Environmental Science Centre (MARE-UC), Department of Life Sciences, Coimbra, Portugal 2 British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Cambridge, UK
Synonyms Cold ocean environments; Flightless birds; Marine ecosystems; Seabirds
Definition Penguins (Family Spheniscidae) are aquatic flightless seabirds breeding in the South Hemisphere, with high diversity in the sub-Antarctic islands (Williams 1995). Some penguins (e.g., Chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarcticus, macaroni penguins Eudyptes chrysolophus) breed in vast colonies where food resources are predictable and profitable (Horswill et al. 2016; Lynch et al. 2016). Their physiology is highly specialized for diving, being efficient and fast swimmers (Cherel et al. 2005; Orgeret et al. 2016), with various adaptations in circulatory
and metabolic systems (Green et al. 2001). For example, they possess flipper-like wings for wing-propelled diving, densely packed insulating feathers, eyes sensitivity for underwater predation, dense bones, stiff wing joints, and reduced distal wing musculature to overcome buoyancy in water (Ksepka and Ando 2011; Pan et al. 2019; Sivak and Millodot 1977; Taylor 1986). Their sizes range from over 1 m (emperor penguins Aptenodytes forsteri) to less than 0.5 m (little penguins Eudyptula minor) (Williams 1995). By having such diverse distribution and ecology, penguins provide a very interesting model for understanding evolutionary processes such as speciation, adaptation, and demography (Pan et al. 2019). Penguins are considered bioindicators or sentinels of the marine environment health (Barbraud et al. 2020; Boersma 2008; Trathan et al. 2015; Xavier et al. 2017, 2018a) with >90% of all penguins living in the Southern Ocean (Barbraud et al. 2020).
Introduction Importance and Diversity of Penguins Flightless seabirds have been known to occur in both hemispheres: the Great Auk Pinguinus impennis (Family Alcidae) in the North hemisphere (extinct in the nineteenth century (Bengtson 1984; Pimenta et al. 2008)) and
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Life Below Water, Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71064-8_46-1
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Penguins: Diversity, Threats, and Role in Marine Ecosystems
Penguins: Diversity, Threats, and Role in Marine Ecosystems, Fig. 1 Examples of Penguin species from the Southern Hemisphere. From top left: Chinstrap penguin Pygoscelis antarcticus. (J.C. Xavier, MARE-UC/BAS), macaroni penguin Eudyptes chrysolophus. (J.C. Xavier, MARE-UC/BAS), emperor penguin Aptenodytes forsteri.
(P. N. Trathan, BAS), gentoo penguin Pygoscelis papua. (J.C. Xavier, MARE-UC/BAS), king penguin Aptenodytes patagonicus. (P. N. Trathan, BAS), and magellanic penguin Spheniscus magellanicus. (J.C. Xavier, MAREUC/BAS)
penguins (Family Spheniscidae) in the Southern hemisphere (Fig. 1) (still present (Davis and Renner 2
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