Over the last 60 years, the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) has experienced profound, rapid environmental changes, including a 6°C increase in mid-winter surface atmospheric temperatures (greater than 5x the global average), increased heat content of seawater over the shelf, and accelerated retreat and melting of glaciers. The population sizes of true Antarctic species, such as Adélie penguins, are declining.  In contrast, local populations of sub-Antarctic species, such as gentoo penguins, are on the increase as these warmer-climate species migrate southwards. The arrival of gentoo penguins in former Adélie penguin territory has potentially created new foraging competition that raises important questions regarding the impact that climate migration may have on foraging competition, and the persistence and function of critical biological hotspots.

Intellectual Merit: The environmental cues that influence foraging behavior are not well understood, but are critically important to understand how the environment can drive species distribution in the context of variability and change. Our study examined the environmental cues that two penguin species (Adélie and gentoo penguins) use to locate food. By examining predator foraing behavior at the individual level, we were able to conduct a unique analysis of this important marine ecological hotspot, and illustrate the role fine scale environmental cues have on top predator foraging behavior and potential prey fields. We found that Adélie and gentoo penguins used different environmental cues in the same foraging habitats. This suggests that potential competition due to climate-induced shifts in species composition may be mediated by the differences in foraging behavior of each species, and that the environmental mechanisms that maintain top predators in these hotspots are species-specific.

Our study specifically addressed the mechanisms that underlie the enhanced biological productivity associated with the Palmer Deep Canyon biological hotspot. We found that surface circulation is likely responsible for delivering phytoplankton biomass produced elsewhere into the Palmer Deep, much like a conveyor belt. This continual replenishment of phytoplankton feeds the local Antarctic krill community, which in turn supports numerous top predators. This discovery contradicts the previously proposed mechanisms of local biological production in this particular hotspot, and emphasizes the importance of surface circulation and the winds that drive it. 

Broader Impacts: Our project included a very strong broader impacts component that reached a wide audience. We worked with 25 educators and their students from middle and high schools in New York and New Jersey. The goal was for students to conduct their own research concurrently to our field season, making use of our data. We held an educator workshop in August 2014, introducing our study to the educators who would then take it to their classrooms. The students followed our field season (2014-2015) online, reading and commenting on our daily blogs (28 posts, 249 photos, 495 comments, 52,261 page views, with 7,877 individual users) and downloading our data. In January 2015, the teachers and students joined the field team remotely for a series of video teleconferences. In April 2015, we hosted a one-day science symposium in which the students presented the results of their research and were able to interact with some of our research team. In addition, we conducted two 1-hour video teleconferences with the general public through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These are available as archived videos for download and currently there have been 5000 downloads.

Converge education and outreach efforts served as the prototype for NSF funded Polar Interdisciplinary Coordinated Education (ICE) (grant # PLR-1440435 and OPP-1525635).  The Science Investigator program (Sci-I) was modeled after Converge and serves 48 educators and more then 3,000 students in inquiry based learning.   The Converge model has shown statistical significance in building a) student engagement in science- defined as persistence, interest and curiosity in STEM; b) contributions to student identity, defined as describing themselves as having qualities or characteristics of a scientist (think of themselves as scientist); and c) understanding of the  “Process of Science” defined as complex, iterative, and non-linear procedure, involving observation, exploration, testing, communication, and application.

Through integrating educators and students into the research mission and exposing them to the actual process of science by the scientists and for themselves, educators and students increased their understanding of the authentic process of science and use of real-world data. Key drivers of the success of this project for educators and students were being part of a science mission, through the expedition journal and VTCs, as well as actually doing an open-ended science investigations as part of an authentic process more than just a school assignment. An indication of the broad scale success of this project was the change in educators’ approach to teaching the process of science to be more active and student-led, as well as how the students grew to see themselves as contributing scientists and as active drivers of their learning process.

Last Modified: 11/29/2017
Modified by: Josh Kohut