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SUMMARY:Counting the Emperor - Peter Fretwell\, British Antarctic Survey
DTSTART:20140501T181500Z
DTEND:20140501T203000Z
UID:TALK47525@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Peter Watson
DESCRIPTION:Population biology has always been a heavy user of statistics.
  One of its primary assumptions is that we cannot count everything\, so we
  have to select a smaller sample population and extrapolate\, using carefu
 lly selected parameters\, to estimate larger populations. But what if we c
 ould count everything? What would this mean in statistical terms and how w
 ould we have to change our thinking to accommodate such information?  \n\n
 In 2012 we published the first census of a species from space. Our aim was
  to estimate the population of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes fosteri) usin
 g a single synoptic survey. We examined the whole continental coastline of
  Antarctica using a combination of medium resolution and Very High Resolut
 ion (VHR) satellite imagery to identify emperor penguin colony locations. 
 Where colonies were identified\, VHR imagery was obtained in the 2009 bree
 ding season. The remotely-sensed images were then analysed using a supervi
 sed classification method to separate penguins from snow\, shadow and guan
 o. Actual counts of penguins from eleven ground truthing sites were used t
 o convert these classified areas into numbers of penguins using a robust r
 egression algorithm. We found four new colonies and confirmed the location
  of three previously suspected sites giving a total number of emperor peng
 uin breeding colonies of 46. We estimated the breeding population of emper
 or penguins at each colony during 2009 and provide a population estimate o
 f  approx. 238\,000 breeding pairs (compared with the last previously publ
 ished count of 135\,000–175\,000 pairs). Based on published values of th
 e relationship between breeders and nonbreeders\, this translates to a tot
 al population of ~595\,000 adult birds. There is a growing consensus in th
 e literature that global and regional emperor penguin populations will be 
 affected by changing climate\, a driver thought to be critical to their fu
 ture survival. However\, a complete understanding is severely limited by t
 he lack of detailed knowledge about much of their ecology\, and importantl
 y a poor understanding of their total breeding population. To address the 
 second of these issues\, our work now provides a comprehensive\, consisten
 t and robust estimate of the total breeding population. Since this survey 
 we have continued to monitor each colony and hope that over the next few y
 ears we can publish a total population trend for the species. Most previou
 s studies on emperor penguins have been taken from a single accessible sit
 e\, our studies of the whole population have led to a number of other impo
 rtant observations about emperor penguins that lead us to question the sui
 tablity of single site studies for this and possibly other species.\n
LOCATION:Amgen Limited\, Cambridge Science Park
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