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    Draft: differences in the foraging strategies of male and female Adelie penguins

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    Document Number:
    WG-EMM-95/46
    Author(s):
    Franchi, E., Kerry, K., Clarke, J.
    Agenda Item(s)
    Abstract

    Consistent gender differences in foraging trip durations, feeding localities and diet of breeding Adelie penguins were demonstrated at two widely separated locations over a number of years. Female penguins tended to make longer foraging trips than males, ranged greater distances more frequently and consumed larger quantities of krill, especially when chicks were small. Males tended instead to make shorter journeys to closer foraging grounds during the guard period, and fed more extensively on fish throughout chick rearing. The importance of these results to monitoring programs such as the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program (CEMP), their relevance to the energetics of reproduction and their role in the intraspecific partitioning of foraging behaviour are discussed.