The melting of glaciers has led to an increase in the reproductive rate of penguins. What happened?

Melting glaciers will bring many hazards, such as encroaching on the original living space of polar animals. Due to the influence of global greenhouse effect, the ice melts early and freezes late every year, which greatly shortens the hunting period of polar bears, so the survival crisis is greatly increased.

Therefore, in our consciousness, the change of sea ice will bring huge survival crisis to animals at the poles, but some experts have found that Antarctic penguins not only have not faced the problems we are worried about because of the melting of sea ice, but their lives are getting more and more moist. What's going on here?

Therefore, scientists use natural experimental methods and positioning systems to track the whereabouts of Adelie penguins. Through this experiment, scientists can understand the penguin's foraging direction and their behavior at every moment, such as walking, swimming or resting, so as to estimate the number of prey these penguins can get.

Penguins in different seasons show different behaviors. During the freezing season, penguins will walk along the coast, and after a few minutes' rest, they will dive repeatedly where the ice cracks are found. Then, in the ice-free season, these penguins go directly into the water near their nests for food, and occasionally rest on ice floes.

The study of higher foraging efficiency found that for Adelie penguins, foraging efficiency is higher in the ice-free season, because they can turn the original walking mode into useful, greatly saving their energy, and their useful speed is ten times that of walking.

Then, in the ice-free season, penguins don't have to go to great lengths to find ice cracks on foot, but can dive into the water for food anytime and anywhere, and the diving time is shorter, and the physiological pressure brought by seawater is less, which not only further saves their foraging time, but also reduces the competition for food within their race.

The hero of the story, Adelie Penguin, lives in Adelie, Antarctica. They are relatively small penguins, only 0.7-0.8 meters tall. They are a large number of seabirds that live on ice. So the change of sea ice seems to be of great significance to the survival of this seabird.

In fact, many experts have studied the impact of sea ice melting on penguin survival, showing two completely different research results. Some studies believe that the melting of sea ice will greatly reduce the reproductive rate of penguins and pose a great threat to the survival and development of Adelie penguins. This view is quite understandable.

Then another view is that the melting of sea ice has promoted the increase of the reproduction rate of this seabird. How should this be explained?

Some scientists believe that krill is an important food for Adelie penguins, and the melting of sea ice increases their chances of entering the water, which means that their predation probability increases and their predation cost decreases.