The 119 is a Polar research program ( ECONERGIE 119 ) supported by the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV). It brings together different researchers, students and contract workers from the Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien Institute (UMR 7178 CNRS-UdS, Strasbourg), the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK), and the University of Turku (Finland).

 

This research program is devoted to understanding the physiological and behavioral adaptations used by a colonial seabird, the king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus ) to cope with the various constraints of its environment, in a context of global change.

 

Initiated in the 1970s by René Groscolas, the program originally focused on understanding the physiological adaptations of penguins to long-term fasting and has allowed many advances in our comprehension of the mechanisms underlying the management of energy stores in wild animals, including in humans. The program has since progressed to consider many aspects of animal physiology (including the stress axis, cell metabolism and its mitochondrial functioning, individual immunity, as well as the management of oxidative stress) in relation to the ecological pressures to which these birds are subjected in their daily lives (parasitism, predation, climatic variability, thermal stress, colonial aggression, sexual competition).

 

One of the recent axes of the program is to understand the physiological responses of individuals to climate change on land, by building a long-term physiological observatory for the species.

 

The program is coordinated at the Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, and the various members and speakers work collaboratively with a large number of French and international scientists. The core members of the program include: