Penguin Droppings: Climate Change and Penguin Chicks

penguin droppings: But some researchers have found a new way to use satellites to figure out what penguins eat by capturing images of the animal's poop deposits across Antarctica. ; A group of scientists studying Ad lie penguins and climate change have found that the color of penguin droppings indicates whether the animals ate shrimp-like krill reddish orange or silverfish blue . The distinction is interesting because the penguin's diet serves as an indicator of the response of the marine ecosystem to climate change, according to National Observer. Separate research is starting to show, for example, that penguin chicks that are forced to rely on krill as their main source of food don't grow as much as those who have fish in their diet. Satellites watch many things as they orbit the Earth hurricanes brewing in the Caribbean, tropical forests burning in the Amazon, even North Korean soldiers building missile launchers. The penguins' guano deposits build up over time on the rocky outcroppings where the birds congregate, making them colorful landmarks. There's a clear regional difference, krill on the west, fish on the east, says Casey Youngflesh, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Connecticut who presented his findings last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington. The researchers took samples from the penguin colonies, found their spectral wavelength, then matched this color to images taken from the orbiting Landsat-7 satellite. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.