Scientists often study penguins to gauge how climate change is affecting the marine ecosystem. To keep track of individual birds they use flipper bands. But a 10-year study shows that these bands reduce the penguins’ breeding success and survival, thus biasing the data. To find out more about the study and see the cute king penguins that took part, check out this video.

The findings are published in Nature and there’s an interview with the researchers on this week’s Nature Podcast

See also the Nature news story ‘Band of bothers’.