Estimating prey consumption of the non-breeder component of an Adélie penguin population

Estimating the consumption of prey by higher-order predators is a priority for WG-EMM as an element in CCAMLR’s ecosystem-based approach to management for the krill fishery in the Southern Ocean. Previous assessments of prey consumption for seabirds have focussed on breeders using data recorded at the breeding colonies. However, recent work suggests that the size of the non-breeder component of an Adélie penguin population can be substantial compared with the size of the breeder population. This paper describes the extension and parameterisation of a bio-energetics model developed to estimate prey consumption by breeding Adélie penguins to include estimates of prey consumption for the non-breeder component of an Adélie penguin population. Given an estimate of non-breeder abundance, this development allows consumption to be estimated for the total population.