Applying science to pressing conservation needs for penguins.

More than half of the world's 18 penguin species are declining. We, the Steering Committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission Penguin Specialist Group, determined that the penguin species in most critical need of conservation action are African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), Galápagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus), and Yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes). Due to small or rapidly declining populations, these species require immediate scientific collaboration and policy intervention. We also used a pairwise-ranking approach to prioritize research and conservation needs for all penguins. Among the 12 cross-taxa research areas we identified, we ranked quantifying population trends, estimating demographic rates, forecasting environmental patterns of change, and improving the knowledge of fisheries interactions as the highest priorities. The highest ranked conservation needs were to enhance marine spatial planning, improve stakeholder engagement, and develop disaster-management and species-specific action plans. We concurred that, to improve the translation of science into effective conservation for penguins, the scientific community and funding bodies must recognize the importance of and support long-term research; research on and conservation of penguins must expand its focus to include the nonbreeding season and juvenile stage; marine reserves must be designed at ecologically appropriate spatial and temporal scales; and communication between scientists and decision makers must be improved with the help of individual scientists and interdisciplinary working groups.

Aplicación de Ciencia en las Necesidades de Conservación Urgentes para los Pingüinos. Resumen Más de la mitad de las 18 especies de pingüinos del mundo están disminuyendo. Nosotros, el Comité Directivo de la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, Grupo de Especialistas en Pingüinos, determinamos que las especies de pingüinos con necesidades críticas de conservación son el pingüino africano (Spheniscus demersus), el pingüino de las Galápagos (Spheniscus mendiculus) y el pingüino de ojos amarillos (Megadyptes antipodes). Debido a que sus poblaciones son pequeñas o están declinando rápidamente, estos pingüinos requieren colaboración científica e intervención política inmediatas. También utilizamos un método de clasificación por pares para priorizar las necesidades de investigación y conservación para todas las especies de pingüinos. Entre las 12 áreas de investigación que identificamos, las más prioritarias fueron: cuantificación de las tendencias poblacionales, estimación de las tasas demográficas, predicción de las patrones de cambio ambiental y mejora del conocimiento de las interacciones con pesquerías. Las mayores necesidades de conservación fueron: optimizar la planificación marina espacial, mejorar la colaboración de las partes interesadas y desarrollar planes de manejo de desastres y de acción para cada especie. Coincidimos en que, para mejorar la traducción de la ciencia en la conservación efectiva de los pingüinos, la comunidad científica y los organismos financiadores deben reconocer la importancia de la investigación a largo plazo y apoyarla; la investigación sobre pingüinos y su conservación debe expandir su enfoque para incluir la época no reproductiva y la etapa juvenil; las reservas marinas deben ser diseñadas a escalas espaciotemporales ecológicamente apropiadas; y la comunicación entre científicos y tomadores de decisiones debe mejorar con la ayuda de científicos individuales y grupos de trabajo interdisciplinario.

Sex-biased survival contributes to population decline in a long-lived seabird, the Magellanic Penguin.

We developed a Hidden Markov mark-recapture model (R package marked) to examine sex-specific demography in Magellanic Penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus). Our model was based on 33 yr of resightings at Punta Tombo, Argentina, where we banded ~44,000 chicks from 1983 to 2010. Because we sexed only 57% of individuals over their lifetime, we treated sex as an uncertain state in our model. Our goals were to provide insight into the population dynamics of this declining colony, to inform conservation of this species, and to highlight the importance of considering sex-specific vital rates in demographic seabird studies. Like many other seabirds, Magellanic Penguins are long-lived, serially monogamous, and exhibit obligate biparental care. We found that the non-breeding-season survival of females was lower than that of males and that the magnitude of this bias was highest for juveniles. Biases in survival accumulated as cohorts aged, leading to increasingly skewed sex ratios. The survival bias was greatest in years when overall survival was low, that is, females fared disproportionality worse when conditions were unfavorable. Our model-estimated survival patterns are consistent with independent data on carcasses from the species' non-breeding grounds, showing that mortality is higher for juveniles than for adults and higher for females than for males. Juveniles may be less efficient foragers than adults are and, because of their smaller size, females may show less resilience to food scarcity than males. We used perturbation analysis of a population matrix model to determine the impact of sex-biased survival on adult sex ratio and population growth rate at Punta Tombo. We found that adult sex ratio and population growth rate have the greatest proportional response, that is, elasticity, to female pre-breeder and adult survival. Sex bias in juvenile survival (i.e., lower survival of females) made the greatest contribution to population declines from 1990 to 2009. Because starvation is a leading cause of morality in juveniles and adults, precautionary fisheries and spatial management in the region could help to slow population decline. Our data add to growing evidence that knowledge of sex-specific demography and sex ratios are necessary for accurate assessment of seabird population trends.