Penguins Are Getting 'Divorced' Faster Than Before — and Humans Might Be at Fault
Penguins are universally regarded as symbols of enduring love. When a male penguin falls in love with a female, he will comb the entire beach to collect pebbles and then gift them to his partner, as per The Guardian. Couples in many penguin species, including Adelie, Chinstrap, Gentoo, Macaroni, Magellanic, and Royal penguins stay together and mate throughout their lifetime. Given all these facts, it might seem a bit contradictory that penguins in Australia have high divorce rates, as researchers revealed in a study published in the Ecology and Evolution journal.
Many Australian little penguins divorce their partners and find a new mate if they’re not satisfied with the number of chicks in their nest. For these penguins, however, divorce is more about survival than about heartbreak or a love lost. The researchers of Monash University and Phillip Island Nature Parks have been keeping an investigative eye on the little penguins of Australia for over a decade to understand more about their love lives and reproductive future. For this study, they analyzed Australia’s Phillip Island which cradles the world’s largest colony of little penguins, around 37,000. These blue-and-white-feathered birds attract thousands of visitors worldwide each year as they march and waddle in the “Penguin Parade,” making their way from the ocean to their nests.
The researchers found that poor reproductive season is one of the primary factors behind their breakups. “In good times, they largely stick with their partners, although there’s often a bit of hanky-panky happening on the side,” Professor Richard Reina, Head of Monash’s Ecophysiology and Conservation Research Group in the School of Biological Sciences, said in a press release. “However, after a poor reproductive season, they may try to find a new partner for the next season to increase their breeding success,” he noted.
All the while a penguin divorces its mate and spends time finding a new one, the colony suffers from delays in the breeding season and an overall decline in reproductive efficiency. All the time that a penguin spent wooing their new mate was a loss for the colony, in terms of energy, reproduction, and even productivity. The researchers studied 13 breeding seasons and found that there were around 250 divorces among thousands of pairs in this Australian colony. The years with the lowest divorce rates showed relative breeding success.
The study was much more than understanding the love lives and reproductive rates of this penguin population. It was, in fact, a way to know more about the social dynamics of these seabirds so appropriate measures could be taken to protect them from harsh environmental conditions. "Our results also suggest that monitoring divorce rates could offer a valuable, noninvasive tool for tracking reproductive trends in seabirds, particularly in populations facing fluctuating environmental conditions," the team noted in the study.
And while, even for the most professional couple therapists, it might be tempting to think that even the most idealized symbols of romance, the penguin couples, break up from time to time, the underlying matter is much more serious. It is mainly their need for survival that catalyzes their break-ups and not a lack of romantic chemical supply. Usually, factors like food scarcity, climate change or habitat disruptions drive these penguins to leave their mates and look for a new mate. If scientists figure out a way to address these factors, they may as well minimize their divorce rates and restore the collective reproductive energy of the majestic colony.