"The more animals we get, the larger the footprint there is, and we're finding higher diversity in those sites," Bokhorst told AFP, emphasising that species' richness was linked less with how cold or dry the region was and more to the nutrients added by the excrement.
Ultimately, the research allowed the team to map the hotspots across the Antarctic Peninsula, finding penguin colonies to be a proxy for biodiversity.
The maps can be updated in the future using satellite imagery to determine the size and location of breeding colonies, freeing future scientists from having to conduct treacherous fieldwork.
For Bokhorst, Antarctica presented an "ideal natural laboratory" to study the relationship between nutrients and biodiversity because of the simplicity of the overall food web, in contrast to other parts of the world where ecosystems were far more complex.
But the study also underscored how interconnected the continent's ecosystem was -- and therefore its vulnerability to human activity.
All countries working on the continent are subject to the Antarctic Treaty System, which obliges them to protect its wildlife, but Bokhorst said the study showed "if you start poking at one end it will have an effect at the other end."
"You need to keep a good eye that you're not overfishing the oceans so you're not harming food supplies, otherwise you're going to have an impact for biodiversity," he said.
The peninsula's vibrant invertebrate communities face few predators, but the advent of tourism means there is an increasing chance people could bring seeds or even insects with them.
These, in turn, could benefit from the soil enrichment and establish themselves, threatening the native species.
"That's a very good argument (for) why we should be careful with the Antarctic," said Bokhorst.