A remote sensing analysis of Adelie penguin rookeries

Abstract

The Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) makes up the vast majority of bird biomass in the Antarctic. As a major consumer of krill, these birds play an important role in the Antarctic food web, and they have been proposed as an indicator species of the vitality of the Southern Ocean ecosystem. This study explores the terrestrial habitat of the Adelie penguin as a target for remote sensing reconnaissance. Laboratory and groundlevel reflectance measurements of Antarctic materials found in and around penguin rookeries were examined in detail. These analyses suggested data transformation which helped separate penguin rookeries from surrounding areas in Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery. The physical extent of penguin rookeries on Ross and Beaufort Islands, Antarctica, was estimated from the satellite data and compared to published estimates of penguin populations. The results suggest that TM imagery may be used to identify previously undiscovered penguin rookeries, and the imagery may provide a means of developing new population estimation methods for Antarctic ornithology.