Data collected to measure foraging and reproductive success. Stored as time series data including mass, condition (fat stores), length, girth, offspring survival and growth. Data collected and methodology used varies depending on species.

From the abstract of the referenced paper: Satellite telemetry data are a key source of animal distribution information for marine ecosystem management and conservation activities. We used two decades of telemetry data from the East Antarctic sector of the Southern Ocean. Habitat utilization models for the spring/summer period were developed for six highly abundant, wide-ranging meso- and top-predator species: Adelie, Pygoscelis adeliae and emperor, Aptenodytes forsteri penguins, light-mantled albatross, Phoebetria palpebrata, Antarctic fur seals, Arctocephalus gazella, southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, and Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddellii. The regional predictions from these models were combined to identify areas utilized by multiple species, and therefore likely to be of particular ecological significance. These areas were distributed across the longitudinal breadth of the East Antarctic sector, and were characterized by proximity to breeding colonies, both on the Antarctic continent and on subantarctic islands to the north, and by sea-ice dynamics, particularly locations of winter polynyas. These areas of important habitat were also congruent with many of the areas reported to be showing the strongest regional trends in sea ice seasonality. The results emphasize the importance of on-shore and sea-ice processes to Antarctic marine ecosystems. Our study provides ocean-basin-scale predictions of predator habitat utilization, an assessment of contemporary habitat use against which future changes can be assessed, and is of direct relevance to current conservation planning and spatial management efforts. The data files provided here comprise the model predictions of the preferred habitat for each of the six species listed above, as well as the overlap results obtained by combining these six sets of results. See the paper for methods used to generate the model predictions and to combine the individual species results. File names for individual species are of the form results_SPP_TYPE.asc, where SPP is one of "afs" (Antarctic fur seal), "ap" (Adelie penguin), "ep" (emperor penguin), "lma" (light-mantled albatross), "ses" (southern elephant seal), or "ws" (Weddell seal. TYPE is either "mean" (mean estimate of habitat preference) or "iqr" (inter-quartile range of uncertainty in the estimate; see paper for details). Data values for individual species results are percentiles of the study area, so that values of 90% or higher are pixels corresponding to the most important 10% of habitat for that species, values of 80% or greater are the top 20% of habitat, and so on. The overlap results files are named overlay_results_mean.asc and overlay_results_iqr.asc. Values in these files represent the average of the top four individual species results in a given pixel (see paper for details).

Metadata record for data from AAS (ASAC) project 2926. Public Summary DNA based approaches will be used to study key features of the ecology of whales, penguins and krill. Standard methods cannot accurately estimate what prey species these predators consume, how old they are, or how they are related to the rest of their species. This project will apply novel DNA based methods to biopsy or scat samples as a non-invasive means of improving our understanding of the diet, age and population structure of these important predators. Project objectives: The overall objective of this project is to use molecular biology to study aspects of the ecology of key Southern Ocean predators that cannot be addressed with other methodologies. The organisms that the project would focus upon have been chosen because they are large biomass components of the Southern Ocean food web and because they are important to the Australian Governments commitments to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the International Whaling Commission (IWC). This project is integral to the work of the Australian Centre for Applied Marine Mammal Science (ACAMMS) that has recently been formed within the Science Branch of the AAD. The focus predators are baleen whales (primarily Minke whales, Balaenoptera edeni and Humpback whales, Megaptera novaengliae), Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). Within this overall goal, there are three major objectives: To characterise and monitor predation by key Southern Ocean organisms with dietary DNA analysis. To use population genetics to study the stock structure and population size of baleen whales and Antarctic krill. To develop and validate DNA-based age estimation methods for whales. DNA Based Dietary Research A major objective of this project is to apply DNA based methods for dietary analysis to large sample sets taken to address specific ecological questions. My group at the Australian Antarctic Division has been at the forefront of developing DNA based methods to study animal diet. We have been especially active in researching DNA as a non-invasive means of studying the diet of large mammals and birds by reconstructing diet with prey DNA that we can identify in scats from predators. Our development of new DNA-based methodologies (Jarman et al., 2002; Jarman et al., 2004; Deagle et al., 2005; Jarman et al., 2006a) and accompanying software tools (Jarman 2004; Jarman 2006) have led to more efficient dietary analysis methods and has produced a substantial volume of good quality published research and stimulated international interest in these methodologies, which are now being pursued by several overseas laboratories. We have completed short descriptive studies of the diet of Antarctic krill (Passmore et al., 2006), whales (Jarman et al., 2002; Jarman et al., 2004; Jarman et al., 2006b), fur seals (Casper et al., in prep) and macaroni penguins (Deagle et al., in prep) with these methods, but have not had comprehensive sets of samples with which we can address broader ecological questions. The ecological questions that the dietary component of this project will address are: 1a. What is the diversity and identity of prey species consumed by populations of the key predators? 1b. What are the relative biomass proportions of prey species consumed by key predator populations? 1c. What temporal variation is there in diversity, identity and abundance of prey consumed by each key predator population? 1d. What spatial variation is there in diversity, identity and abundance of prey consumed by each key predator population? The focus species cover three trophic levels of the Southern Ocean food web. Krill are thought to feed predominately on primary producers with some heterotrophic prey taken as well. Adelie penguins feed on krill and other small nekton and plankton, as well as being prey of leopard seals and killer whales, making them a mid-to-high level

A survey of seabirds off the coast between Port Lincoln, South Australia and Fremantle, Western Australia during December 1994 was conducted on the voyage 11/94 of the CSIRO Oceanographic Research Vessel Franklin. Mean abundances were calculated from a series of 10 minute counts by a human observer through the trip, with sea surface temperature, salinity, water depth, current speed and direction, sea conditions and visibility also measured. The following birds were recorded: Wandering Albatross; Royal Albatross; Shy Albatross; Black-browed Albatross; Yellow-nosed Albatross; Sooty Albatross; Northern Giant; Blue Petrel; Great-winged Petrel; Gould's Petrel; White-headed Petrel; White-chinned Petrel; Flesh-footed Shearwater; Short-tailed Shearwater; Wedge-tailed Shearwater; Fluttering Shearwater; Little Shearwater; Wilson's Storm-Petrel; White-faced Storm-Petrel; Black-bellied Storm-Petrel; Australasian Gannet; Black-faced Cormorant; Pomarine Jaeger; Silver Gull; Pacific Gull; Crested Tern; Common Tern; Bridled Tern; Sooty Tern

This study was carried out by Giulia Roncon as part of her PhD at IMAS. The study employed both archival and contemporary diving data, collected by six species of marine predators (three penguins and three seal species) from the Eastern Antarctic sector of the Southern Ocean, to clarify key questions, such as (i) are there differences and/or commonalities regarding the diving physiology and ecology of marine predators, and (ii) what are the main determinants and constrains that characterise the underwater behaviour of air-breathing vertebrates. This dataset is a compilation of data of several different studies carried out by different research teams in various locations and at various times. All TDRs were archival loggers that had to be retrieved to obtain the data. Thus, the animals had to be captured twice (deployment and retrieval). Details about the types of tags are listed in the dataset. Species used in the study were: Adelie Penguins Emperor Penguins King Penguins Fur Seals Southern Elephant Seals Weddell Seals

The dataset contains geographic location estimates of Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) tracked via Argos satellite telemetry in the Southern Ocean for the U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources project from 1996-10-29 to 2013-02-19. Birds were instrumented with back-mounted Argos satellite transmitters at the Copacabana Colony (62.21S, 58.42W) on King George Island during the austral summer breeding seasons (October - February) from 1996 to 2013. Typical deployments during the breeding season lasted 5 to 8 days, while some winter deployments lasted several months. The data set identifies the sex of the bird tracked (male, female, or unknown) and the age of the bird (adult). The data also identify the breeding stage of the bird during the summer tracking period (incubation, brood/guard, or creche) or is noted as 'winter' if tracked outside the summer breeding season. The data include the date (DD/MM/YYYY) and time (GMT) of the location estimate. Finally, a categorical estimate of uncertainty in the location estimate is provided by Argos quality codes (3,2,1,0,A,B).

Metadata record for data expected from ASAC Project 2940 See the link below for public details on this project. Public: The extent of Antarctic winter sea-ice influences all aspects of the Antarctic marine food-web. We will use natural variations in inter-annual ice extent, to assess how a key component of that ecosystem, the predators, use the sea ice zone. Core foraging areas and dietary signals for a key Antarctic predator (Antarctic fur seal) will be identified. We will use newly developed, technology to track the animals, and stable isotopes to examine tropic linkages. Combined with satellite-derived sea-ice data, this will lead to the development of a model to predict how changing sea-ice patterns will influence Antarctic marine predator communities. Project Objectives: 1. Use large samples of newly-developed (and tested) animal-borne miniature geolocating light level recorders to population level information on the spatial extent of movements of Antarctic fur seals, thereby quantifying the extent of the use of the winter pack-ice and associated waters by these abundant predators. 2. To quantify how changes in winter ice extent influence the location of core foraging areas for this species. 3. To develop models to investigate how changing ice conditions in the future will influence the movements of this species and to examine a range of climate-change scenarios. Taken from the 2007-2008 Progress Report: No field work was conducted at Macquarie Island in the last 12 months. This was due to the decision by the state government to not issue permits for the work. With the help of our colleagues from BAS we did however manage to deploy 20 GLS light loggers on Antarctic fur seals at South Georgia. Taken from the 2008-2009 Progress Report: Objective 1 has been revised to the study of Antarctic fur seals only (see below). Research is progressing well with 78 animals tracked in 2008 and a further 80 expected in 2009. Objectives 2 and 3 will follow once field data is available for both years (May 2010). Isotopic analysis of blood and whisker samples for the 2008 season will commence in May 2009 once samples have been received. Taken from the 2010-2011 Progress Report: Public summary of the season progress: This study has quantified the response of the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) to inter-annual variation in oceanographic and winter ice conditions. We have measured the winter spatial foraging patterns of 66 adult females from three circum-Antarctic populations over two years (2008, 2009) during 114 trips to sea, while simultaneously recording in situ water temperature. Stable isotope analysis of fur seal blood and whisker samples indicates that adult females feed on a range of lower (krill) to higher (fish and squid) trophic levels across their winter range. Broad-scale habitat preferences across the range of the species indicate the importance of shelf, ice edge, frontal and oceanic and continental upwelling features in determining winter foraging movements.

The distributions at sea of the eight seabird species that breed on Christmas Island were documented during four surveys in the eastern Indian Ocean from 1987 to 1996. These were Common Noddies, Brown Boobies, Red-footed Boobies, Abbott's Boobies, White-tailed Tropicbirds, Red-tailed Tropicbirds, Great Fridgatebirds and Christmas Fridgatebirds.

This file contains a report and a log of biological observations made in the Davis region during 1969. It includes information on Elephant Seals, Leopard Seals, Crabeater Seals, Adelie Penguins, Emperor Penguins, Skuas, Silver-Grey Petrels, Antarctic Petrels, Cape Pigeons, Snow Petrels, Wilson's Storm Petrels, Giant Petrels and Whales. It also includes information from earlier in the 1960s, including information on bird banding, and bird ordinance. The hard copy of the log has been archived by the Australian Antarctic Division library.

This file contains a report and a log of biological observations made in the Davis region during 1962. It includes information on Elephant Seals, Leopard Seals, Crabeater Seals, Adelie Penguins, Emperor Penguins, Skuas, Silver-Grey Petrels, Antarctic Petrels, Cape Pigeons, Snow Petrels, Wilson's Storm Petrels, Giant Petrels and Whales The hard copy of the log has been archived by the Australian Antarctic Division library.