Homogeneity of Adelie penguins as krill samplers

A nest ANOVA design was used to measure the variance component due to differences between individual penguins in the length of krill eaten by Adélie penguins at Esperanza Bay. The value found was not different from zero: variance component = -0.16; F = 0.93; P = 0.54. This finding supports the use of individual penguins to estimate parameters of the prey population without discriminating by sex, weight or other factors pertaining to the predator.