Antarctica's king penguins emit such copious amounts of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, via their faeces that researchers went a little "cuckoo" studying them, according to a Danish scientific study published Thursday.

"Penguin guano produces significantly high levels of nitrous oxide around their colonies," said the head of the study, Professor Bo Elberling, of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.

While studying colonies of king penguins on the Atlantic island of South Georgia between South America and Antarctica, "the researchers went 'cuckoo' from being surrounded by penguin poop", he said.

Besides being a strain on the climate, nitrous oxide has an effect very similar to the sedative laughing gas used at the dentist's.

"After nosing about in guano for several hours, one goes completely cuckoo. One begins to feel ill and get a headache," Elberling said.

Nitrous oxide is 300 times more polluting to the environment than carbon dioxide.

The nitrous oxide is explained by the penguin diet of krill and fish, which contains high levels of nitrogen.

Nitrogen is released from the penguins' faeces into the ground and soil bacteria then convert it into nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas.

"While nitrous oxide emissions in this case are not enough to impact Earth's overall energy budget, our findings contribute to new knowledge about how penguin colonies affect the environment around them, which is interesting because colonies are generally becoming more and more widespread," Elberling said.

Related Links
Beyond the Ice Age

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Seal behavior helps scientists predict changes in Antarctic krill distribution
Washington DC (UPI) Apr 28, 2020
By analyzing the feeding patterns of crabeater seals, scientists have designed new models to predict the effects of environmental changes on Antarctic krill distribution. "We're using the feeding behavior of this one predator as an indicator of the habitat for their prey and how that could change," Luis Huckstadt, researcher with the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a news release. For the last several years, Daniel Costa, professor of eco ... read more