SCAR Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data

We assembled tracking data from seabirds (n = 12 species) and marine mammals (n = 5 species), collected between 1991 and 2016, from across the Antarctic predator research community. See https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/SCAR_EGBAMM_RAATD_2018_Standardised and https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/SCAR_EGBAMM_RAATD_2018_Filtered for the tracking data. Habitat selectivity modelling was applied to these tracking data in order to identify the environmental characteristics important to each species, and to produce circum-Antarctic predictions of important geographic space for each individual species. The individual species maps were then combined to identify regions important to our full suite of species. This approach enabled us to account for incomplete tracking coverage (i.e., colonies from which no animals have been tracked) and to produce an integrated and spatially explicit assessment of areas of ecological importance across the Southern Ocean.

The data attached to this metadata record include the single-species maps for Adelie, emperor, king, macaroni, and royal penguins; Antarctic and white-chinned petrels; black-browed, grey-headed, light-mantled, sooty, and wandering albatross; humpback whales; Antarctic fur seal, southern elephant seals, and crabeater and Weddell seals. The data also include the integrated maps that incorporate all species (weighted by colony size, and unweighted). See the paper and its supplementary information for full details on the modelling process and discussion of the model outputs.

Identification info

Alternate title: Tracking of marine predators to protect Southern Ocean ecosystems

Date (Publication): 2020-03-18

Edition: 1

Citation identifier

Dataset DOI

Title: Information and documentation - Digital object identifier system

Date (Publication): 2012-04-23

Citation identifier: ISO 26324:2012

Citation identifier: doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2126-y

Originator

Hindell MA, Reisinger RR, Ropert-Coudert Y, et al

Publisher

Nature

Principal investigator

RAYMOND, BEN

Australian Antarctic Division

203 Channel Highway

Kingston

Tasmania

7050

Australia

+61 3 6232 3336

+61 3 6283 2336 (facsimile)

Collaborator

RAYMOND, BEN

Australian Antarctic Division

203 Channel Highway

Kingston

Tasmania

7050

Australia

+61 3 6232 3336

+61 3 6283 2336 (facsimile)

Website: https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/SCAR_RAATD

Purpose: Southern Ocean ecosystems are under growing pressure from resource exploitation and climate change. Mitigation requires identification and protection of Areas of Ecological Significance (AES), yet these have eluded identification at the ocean-basin scale. Here, for this globally significant region, we identify AES using assemblage-level tracking of marine predators.

Status: Completed

Custodian

AU/AADC > Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australia - AADC, DATA OFFICER (DATA CENTER CONTACT)

Australian Antarctic Division

203 Channel Highway

Kingston

Tasmania

7050

Australia

+61 3 6232 3244

+61 3 6232 3351 (facsimile)

Topic category

Environment
Oceans

Extent

Description: Temporal Coverage

Temporal extent

TimePeriod: 1991-01-01 2016-12-31

Title: Tracking of marine predators to protect Southern Ocean ecosystems

Date (Publication): 2019

Author

Hindell MA, Reisinger RR, Ropert-Coudert Y, Hückstädt LA, Trathan PN, Bornemann H, Charrassin J-B, Chown SL, Costa DP, Danis B, Lea M-A, Thompson D, Torres LG, Van de Putte AP, Ainley DG, Alderman R, Andrews-Goff V, Arthur B, Ballard G, Bengtson J, Bester MN, Schytte Blix A, Boehme L, Bost C-A, Boveng P, Cleeland J, Constantine R, Crawford RJM, Dalla Rosa L, de Bruyn PJN, Delord K, Descamps S, Double M, Emmerson L, Fedak M, Friedlaender A, Gales N, Goebel M, Goetz KT, Guinet C, Goldsworthy SD, H