Data on the morphological and reproductive responses of 4 species of wild caught Abatus heart urchins (A. nimrodi, A. shackletoni, A. ingens, and A. philippii) to sewage effluent from the Davis station sewage outfall. Between 19 and 21 individuals of each species were collected from three sites close to the station. The Sewage outfall site, which acted as the impacted site for the study, and two reference sites, one at Airport Beach, and a second and Heidemann Bay. Morphological measurements taken from each individual were length, width, height, anterior length, and posterior length. A qualitative assessment of the calcareous test of each individual was conducted to determine the presence of any abnormalities (as per Land 2005, PhD thesis) in the individuals morphology. Reproductive data collected were a gonadosotic index (calculated by dividing the gonal mass of a individual by the total mass of that individual). And for females morphological measurements (length and width) of each brood pouch were taken, and the type and number of juveniles in each pouch was counted. Data available: In the spreadsheet provided a description of measurements is given in the first tab. All morphological and reproductive data is presented in the second tab. In full these are; Parent Barcode (for tracking purposes) Individual Barcode (for tracking purposes), date collected (date the animal was collected) date processed (date data were collected) site (site the animal came from) species (nimrodi, shackletoni, ingens, or philippii) sex (male or female) samples taken for other projects (morphology, genetics, histology) Morphological measurements (length, width, height, posterior length, anterior length, all recorded in millimetres) Any of a possible 6 abnormalities observed. Brood pouch morphometrics (length and width in millimeters of each of the 4 brood pouches for a female) Reproductive fitness, being the number of young at any of 3 stages in each of the 4 brood pouches and the total number of juveniles produced by the adult female. Total Wet Mass (mass of the entire animal recorded in grams) Gonad Wet Mass (mass of the gonad of an individual) Gonadosmotic Index (measure of reproductive fitness, and is the Gonad Wet Mass divided by the Total Wet Mass of each individual) A blank datasheet used to record the data is contained within the third tab. The two final tabs are appendices used to aid the qualitative assessments. The first (Appendix 1) gives photo descriptions of each of the known abnormalities in Abatus sp (Adapted from Lane (2005) PhD thesis). The second (Appendix 2) gives photo descriptions of each of the developmental stages of juveniles in Abatus sp.

Sediment samples were collected from nine points along 3 parallel transects within the contaminated Brown Bay. The diatom spreadsheet (diatom_data) contains both initial diatom counts and the relative abundance of benthic species. The abbreviation used to identify species are explained in the separate file called sp_list. Metal, Total Purgeable Hydrocarbons (TPH), and grain-size data are all presented as separate files. This work was completed as part of ASAC project 1130 (ASAC_1130) and project 2201 (ASAC_2201). Public summary from project 1130: Algal mats grow on sea floor in most shallow marine environments. They are thought to contribute more than half of the total primary production in many of these areas, making them a critical food source for invertebrates and some fish. We will establish how important they are in Antarctic marine environments and determine the effects of local sewerage and tip-site pollution. We will also investigate the impact on the algal mats of the additional UV radiation which results from the ozone hole. Public summary from project 2201: As a signatory to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty Australia is committed to comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment. This protocol requires that activities in the Antarctic shall be planned and conducted on the basis of information sufficient to make prior assessments of, and informed judgements about, their possible impacts on the Antarctic environment. Most of our activities in the Antarctic occur along the narrow fringe of ice-free rock adjacent to the sea and many of our activities have the potential to cause environmental harm to marine life. The Antarctic seas support the most complex and biologically diverse plant and animal communities of the region. However, very little is known about them and there is certainly not sufficient known to make informed judgements about possible environmental impacts The animals and plants of the sea-bed are widely accepted as being the most appropriate part of the marine ecosystem for indicating disturbance caused by local sources. Attached sea-bed organisms have a fixed spatial relationship with a given place so they must either endure conditions or die. Once lost from a site recolonisation takes some time, as a consequence the structure of sea-bed communities reflect not only present conditions but they can also integrate conditions in the past. In contrast, fish and planktonic organisms can move freely so their site of capture does not indicate a long residence time at that location. Because sea-bed communities are particularly diverse they contain species with widely differing life strategies, as a result different species can have very different levels of tolerance to stress; this leads to a range of subtle changes in community structure as a response to gradually increasing disturbance, rather than an all or nothing response. This project will examine sea-bed communities near our stations to determine how seriously they are affected by human activities. This information will be used to set priorities for improving operational procedures to reduce the risk of further environmental damage. The fields in this dataset are: bbg_lat spreadsheet Site Latitude Longitude Easting Northing Diatoms spreadsheet Species Site Abundance Transect Metals Spreadsheet Sample Antimony Arsenic Cadmium Chromium Copper Iron Lead Manganese Mercury Nickel Silver Tin Zinc Total Organic Carbon Easting Northing TPH Spreadsheet Site Total Purgeable Hydrocarbons Fraction of Purgeable Hydrocarbons