00:00Three Antarctic penguin species are starting their breeding season notably earlier than a decade ago.
00:07Record speeds, like faster than any other vertebrate.
00:10Researchers attribute the shift to rapid warming at colony sites
00:14and fear it could reshape competition and food access between the species.
00:20Between 2012 and 2022, a study led by the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University
00:28analyzed 37 penguin colonies' settlement dates, the first day they continuously occupy a nesting zone.
00:35They are moving as a species, not just one population here or one population there.
00:40That's Ignacio Juarez-Martinez, the study's lead author from the University of Oxford.
00:46He says that the Adelie, Gentoo, and Chinstrap penguin species all advance their breeding time,
00:52with Gentoo showing the largest change, an average of 13 days earlier per decade.
00:58And as much as 24 days in some colonies.
01:02The Adelie and Chinstraps advanced at an average of 10 days per decade.
01:06The penguins were recorded by cameras that also documented local temperatures,
01:11which researchers say show colony sites warming around four times faster than the Antarctic average.
01:18We're finding that the Gentoo's are much more adaptable.
01:20Juarez-Martinez says the increasingly subpolar conditions could favor generalist species such as Gentoo's
01:27over krill-dependent Chinstraps and ice-associated Adelies,
01:32potentially reshaping competition and food access.
01:35What we fear is that this shift is going to make them compete for food resources,
01:41especially Gentoo's being the food generalists.
01:44They can feed on anything.
01:45This increased competition comes at a time where we are already seeing Adelie's decline in this area
01:52and Chinstraps decline throughout their range.
01:55Actually, Chinstraps, in many models, they don't look that they are going to survive this century.
02:00The study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, said it remained unclear whether earlier breeding
02:06is an adaptive response or if it could leave chicks out of sync with food availability.
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