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Parental foraging effort and offspring growth in Adélie Penguins: does working hard improve reproductive success?

  1. A. Takahashi1,*,
  2. Y. Watanuki2,
  3. K. Sato3,
  4. A. Kato3,
  5. N. Arai4,
  6. J. Nishikawa5,
  7. Y. Naito3

Article first published online: 29 SEP 2003

DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2435.2003.00772.x

Issue

Functional Ecology

Functional Ecology

Volume 17, Issue 5, pages 590–597, October 2003

Additional Information

How to Cite

Takahashi, A., Watanuki, Y., Sato, K., Kato, A., Arai, N., Nishikawa, J. and Naito, Y. (2003), Parental foraging effort and offspring growth in Adélie Penguins: does working hard improve reproductive success?. Functional Ecology, 17: 590–597. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2435.2003.00772.x

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Polar Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Itabashi, Tokyo 173–8515, Japan,

  2. 2

    Laboratory of Animal Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060–8589, Japan,

  3. 3

    National Institute of Polar Research, Itabashi, Tokyo 173–8515, Japan,

  4. 4

    Department of Social Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606–8501, Japan, and

  5. 5

    Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Nakano, Tokyo 146–8639, Japan

* †Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: atak@nipr.ac.jp

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 29 SEP 2003
  2. Article first published online: 29 SEP 2003
  3. Received 13 September 2002; revised 29 April 2003; accepted 3 May 2003

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Keywords:

  • Diving;
  • individual variation;
  • reproductive allocation

Summary

  • 1
    Studying variability of parental foraging and provisioning behaviour in relation to reproductive success is fundamental to improving understanding of regulation of reproductive effort in animals. The hypothesis that parents with higher foraging effort have higher offspring growth rates was tested in chick-provisioning Adélie Penguins in Antarctica over five consecutive years.
  • 2
    Time spent diving per day, an index of foraging effort, varied among male and female parents, and among pairs. These daily interindividual or interpair differences in time spent diving appeared to be consistent over the 2-week study period within each breeding season.
  • 3
    Frequency of meals delivered by parents was positively correlated with their brood growth rate. Meal frequency was, however, independent of the amount of time spent diving per day by parents and the time spent diving did not affect brood growth rates.
  • 4
    Rates of body mass loss of breeding pairs were positively correlated with brood growth rates.
  • 5
    Our results did not support the hypothesis that parents with higher foraging effort have higher offspring growth rates. It is suggested that parental allocation of resources obtained during foraging, rather than the degree of foraging effort, is the more important process determining offspring growth rates in Adélie Penguins.
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