While most species of penguins look similar, their abilities to adapt to change make them as different as black and white.
Oceanography and coastal sciences professor Michael Polito and graduate student Rachael Herman embarked on a one-month journey to the Antarctic Peninsula in December to research how certain penguin species adapt to their environments.
“The reason that we study penguins is because they are great scientific sampling devices,” Polito said.
In a study published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series on Tuesday, Polito’s team studied how certain penguin species’ eating habits — specifically Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins — expressed the effects of climate change and commercial fishing on Antarctic marine ecosystems.
“The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the places that’s warming up faster than others,” Polito said. “This change in climate, combined with commercial fishing of krill — the primary source of food for penguins — affects the marine ecosystem.”
The team found the number of Chinstrap penguins decreased, while the population of Gentoo penguins increased.
Polito concluded both species share similarities, such as the way they breed, but their differences in diet restrictions makes one penguin species more resilient than the other.
Chinstrap penguins possess a stricter diet, eating krill, while Gentoo penguins eat fish and krill, which is why they are unaffected — if not benefitting from changes in their environment, Polito said.
With the initial conclusion reached, Polito enlisted Herman to travel to Antarctica in December 2014 and focus solely on Gentoo penguins.
“Gentoo penguins eat a variety of different items, so they’re highly adaptive to change,” Herman said. “I’m trying to see if this adaptability is pertinent to all populations, or if each individual has its own diet.”
Herman will conduct her research by analyzing samples of feathers and blood to look at how their composition indicates the penguins’ eating habits.
“What’s really cool about [the Antarctic] ecosystem is that there aren’t really any large predators, so all the penguins and seals, they don’t really have a fear of people,” Herman said. “You can literally sit in front of a penguin and watch them do what they do and they aren’t afraid of you or bothered by you. It’s like a National Geographic film, but right in front of you.”
Polito encourages University students who are interested in research to reach out to their professors and gain experience.
Travel opportunities can come to any student who is interested and enthusiastic, Polito said.
Polito and Herman traveled to the Antarctic Peninsula aboard a tour boat with about 200 tourists, Herman said.
When not collecting samples from different penguin colonies, they served as experts in residence, educating passengers on their research.
“We like to think of Antarctica as this remote, pristine place, but our actions still have an effect on the environment over there,” Polito said. “There are two ways that humans have an impact on marine ecosystems. One is with our our fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions, the other is through commercial fishing activities, and in the Antarctic Peninsula, there’s commercial fishing for Antarctic krill.”
While people in Baton Rouge don’t see Antarctic krill on their fish platters, the animal contributes to the production of popular products.
Antarctic krill is used to make nutritional oil supplements advertised as more healthy for consumers than regular fish oils. Krill is also used to feed farm-raised salmon to give the fish the pink color consumers see in regular salmon, Polito said.
“It’s hard for someone in Baton Rouge to think about how they’re impacting these marine ecosystems,” Herman said. “Everything is connected in this world, and I think it’s really important for people to know that these places are out there and these animals are out there, and however far away they are, what we do affects them.”

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Michael Polito

Penguins explored their Antarctic environments during research conducted by coastal sciences professor Michael Polito and graduate student Rachael Herman.