Penguins bring forward breeding season as Antarctica warms: study

PENGUINS are bringing forward their breeding season at record rates as Antarctica rapidly warms due to climate change, according to research published by a global team of scientists this week.

- AFP

The unprecedented shift observed over a decade in penguin breeding patterns was "highly correlated" with rising temperatures on the frozen continent, said the study's lead author Ignacio Juarez Martinez.

Penguin breeding is closely linked to food availability, and less sea ice has meant hunting grounds and nesting sites are more available during the year.

Scientists observing penguin populations in Antarctica had expected breeding to occur a little earlier but were "very surprised both by the scale and the speed of the advance", Martinez told AFP.

"The scale is so great that penguins in most areas are now breeding earlier than in any historical records," said Martinez, a scientist from the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University.