Antarctic SCIENCE UPDATES
Guest Scientist Helen, from this past season, talks about next steps for processing her data (and listen to a gentoo penguin recording!!!!)
During the Austral summer 2019-2020, I had the opportunity to travel as a guest scientist on board the sailing boat Ocean Tramp operated by Quixote Expeditions. This trip was also supported by the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund, Germany. The main aim was to record Gentoo Penguins (Pygoscelis papua) vocalizing in colonies with exclusively Gentoo penguins and in mixed colonies also containing other Pygoscelis species (Chinstrap and Adélie Penguins). And what a trip it was. Best weather conditions, wind still and sunny, amazing people to assist and share nerdy science with and so many beautiful places along the Antarctic Peninsula. This was a fantastic experience!
Getting in the field myself was very helpful, after I have already been analysing the calls of Gentoo penguins recorded by Dr Michaël Beaulieu during the previous Quixote Expedition 2018-2019. During the 2018 expedition, 114 ecstatic display calls that are acoustically analysable (i.e. with no overlap with other noises) were recorded from five colonies with Gentoo penguins only, and 44 calls were recorded from two mixed colonies. From this season trip, I could add 73 ecstatic display calls from four exclusive Gentoo colonies, and 89 calls from six mixed colonies.
I am currently analysing the penguin vocalizations I recorded at the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund or let’s be more precise, at home due to Corona virus restrictions. It took around 3 weeks to go through the recordings, listening and visualizing, to individualize the ecstatic display calls of Gentoo penguins. In the weeks to come I will analyse all those calls in respect of their characteristics (e.g. duration, frequency, segmentation) to compare colonies between each other in relation to the presence or the absence of other penguin species. For a reference I will also separate and analyse a small amount of Adélie and Chinstrap calls. So lots of computer work to come!
Listen to one of her recordings from Antarctica
Gentoo Penguins on Booth Island
Thanks Helen for sharing!!! Can’t wait to hear about the results of the data… stay tuned!
