This dataset consists of two shapefiles created by Darren Southwell of the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) by digitising the boundaries of adelie penguin colonies at the Rauer Group and the Vestfold Hills. The digitising was done from images resulting from the scanning and georeferencing of aerial photographs taken on 24 November 1993. The aerial photographs were taken for the AAD with a Linhof camera. Records of the photographs are included in the Australian Antarctic Data Centre's Aerial Photograph Catalogue.

Adelie colony boundaries at Bechervaise Island were mapped by Matthew Pauza on the 21 Dec 2016. Subcolonies were mapped by circumnavigating the perimeter on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Etrex30) to record the track. When mapping the perimeter of the subcolonies a buffer distance of approximately 2.5 meters was maintained between the mapper and the breeding birds. This buffer distance was reduced by .5m to between 2m in the final shapefiles. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

An occupancy survey in January 2011 found a total of 14 islands/sites in Windmill group had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The boundaries of breeding colonies at 11 of the 14 islands were subsequently mapped for abundance surveys. Four of the islands, Nelly Island, Hollin Island, Midgley Island and Beall Island were mapped from aerial photos taken in January 2011. Images were taken on the 2 January 2011 [Hollin, Midgley, Beall] and 23 January 2011[Nelly]. Mapping involved digitising polygons around sub-colonies from vertical aerial photographs. The boundaries were mapped with a buffer distance of approximately 1-3 m from the perimeter of penguin sub-colonies. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

This is a scanned copy of the vertebrate ecologists report from Davis Station in 1983, written by Rhys Puddicombe. Taken from the report: This annual report covers the period 9/11/82 to 10/12/83. As such it is an incomplete record, as some projects are ongoing until mid-January 1984, whilst others will be begun and completed between early December and mid-January. Where this is the case only a brief outline will be presented to illustrate the aims of these projects. This report will generally deal only with practical work and raw results as the majority of analyses will not be completed until early 1984. The two major projects for the year have been seal tagging/resighting, and penguin vomit analysis. Several additional projects are complementary to this work, but for clarity's sake will be covered separately. Finally, several minor projects have involved either observations or data and material collections for analysis by people in Australia. Topics covered by this report: Lakes Fishing Fat collection Briefing/equipping members of Dick Smith Explorer Elephant Seals - Davis Beach census - Day trips - Branding - Collection of teeth and toenails - Seal census on voyage through pack ice Weddell Seals - Faeces collection for Ken Green - Seal recording - Seal tagging/resighting - Aerial weddell surveys/census Seabird census from Australia to Mawson Ice Edge Giant Petrel banding Vomiting of Southern Fulmars and Cape Petrels and bolus collection of Skuas and Giant Petrels Emperor Penguin vomiting Adelie penguins - Blood collections - Dead adelie collection - Egg collection - Penguin banding - Counts of breeding reference groups - Adelie vomiting

Seven colonies with breeding Adelie colonies were mapped this season in the Kista Island group between the 17th and 27th of November 2015. Subcolonies were mapped by circumnavigating the perimeter on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Etrex30) to record the track. When mapping the perimeter of the subcolonies, generally an average buffer distance of 2.5 meters was maintained between the mapper and breeding birds. However on Klung Island one of the mappers was mapping at a distance between 3 and 5m. Buffer distances were reduced accordingly for the varying tracks to produce a combined average buffer distance of 2m in the final layer. Given this the boundary mapping for these two islands may vary in accuracy. Note when mapping was undertaken at Peterson Island (74507) two subcolonies were not mapped when compared to mapping in the 13/14 season. The larger of these colonies was missed but the smaller colony did not exist in the 15/16 season. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

A collection of at sea observations made of icebergs, seabirds and whales on the BROKE voyage of the Aurora Australis during the 1995-1996 summer season. The data are mostly text or csv files and document observations of icebergs, seabirds and whales, giving times and/or locations. Further supporting information may be included in the data download, or in other metadata records relating to the BROKE voyage (as opposed to the later BROKE-West voyage).

Six colonies with breeding Adelie colonies were mapped this season in the Rookery Island group in conjunction with colony counts. Islands 74814 and the main Rookery Island 74721 were not mapped this season. Subcolonies were mapped by circumnavigating the perimeter of sub-colonies on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Legend Cx) to log the track taken. The person walking the perimeter of the sub-colonies maintained a buffer distance of approximately 2.5m between themselves and the breeding birds along the sub-colony boundary. This buffer distance was reduced to approximately 2m in the final shapefiles. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

The dataset comprises Adelie penguin colony boundaries derived from oblique aerial photographs taken towards the end of the 2014/15 summer between Mawson and Taylor Glacier. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to AAT coastline polygon data and the boundaries of Adelie penguin colonies were digitised. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

We estimate population size in terms of the number of occupied nests for the Adélie penguin metapopulation in western Mac. Robertson Land, East Antarctica in 2009/10 and 2019/20. We also assessed demographic data from a single breeding site in the central part of this area (Béchervaise Island: 67°35'S, 62°49'E) including reproductive success, resight data, and fledgling mass from 1991/92 to 2019/20. We collated environmental covariates of potential drivers in this area over the same time period from sources described below. These are presented in the file “Time series demography and environmental covariates.xls”. Environmental covariates: Sea-ice concentration: Summer sea-ice concentration (SIC) was obtained for the area bounded by longitudes 60 - 65°E, to the south by the Antarctic coastline and the north by latitude 66.75°S. This approximately 250 km stretch of coastline incorporates the location of all Adélie penguin breeding sites across the metapopulation. The area defines the most northerly limit of fast-ice during chick rearing and encompasses the longitudinal range of the birds’ summer foraging activities. The sea-ice contained within this ‘near-shore’ region is predominantly composed of fast-ice (ice that is attached to land but covers seawater). Summer SIC was calculated as an average over the three-week period 25th December to 15th January when adults are guarding chicks for each breeding season. Winter SIC was determined in the following three areas of the penguins’ winter migratory route as defined previously. Each area was defined between specific longitudes and from 50°S south to the Antarctic coastline. The sea-ice contained within this area is composed of fast-ice near the coastline and pack-ice (all sea-ice that is not fast-ice) beyond the fast-ice edge. Two sectors defined the outward journey as they travelled westward towards their winter foraging grounds (50 - 65°E during March, and 30 - 50°E during April), a winter area (15 - 30°E during May-Jul) was considered as the sea ice became more extensive with both 15-100% SIC and 15-80% SIC which is considered more in line with suitable winter foraging ice conditions. The final area was associated with their eastwards journey towards the colony (30 - 50°E during Aug-Sep). For each area and time period, an average SIC was determined for each year in each of these areas. SIC values reflect the total area (km2) covered in sea-ice between either 15-100% or 15-80% SIC in each year and time period using 25x25km pixels. Sea-ice data were obtained from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) (Cavalieri et al. 1996) using Raadtools (Sumner 2017). Broad-scale climatic indices and local weather conditions: We determined the weather conditions during periods reflecting the end of the austral summer when the penguins were leaving their colonies (Feb-Mar) and the inter-breeding winter period (Apr-Sep). The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) were included as broad indicators of climatic conditions, and local weather conditions included air and windchill temperatures. SOI was obtained from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (www.bom.gov.au) and SAM from the NOAA Climate Prediction Centre (http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao_index.html). Mawson Station local weather: Local weather data recorded at Mawson Station were obtained from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. We considered two covariates: windchill and air temperatures both reported in °C. Windchill temperatures were determined from the ambient air temperature, wind speed and the relative humidity: AT= Ta +0.33e-0.7ws-4.0, where Ta is the dry bulb temperature (°C), e is the water vapour pressure (hPa), and ws is the windspeed (ms-1) at 10 m elevation. Water vapour pressure was determined from: (see the actual equation in the download file - "Emmerson_AADC Metadata Records_GCB_2022.docx" - unable to be reproduced here), where rh is the relative humidity (%). This formula follows the Australian Bureau of Meteorology calculation (www.bom.gov.au/info/thermal_stress/). Seabird population parameters: Pre-fledging mass "adjusted.fledge.mass.5_Feb": We determined pre-fledging mass (g) of chicks on the 5th February by either measuring their mass on that date, or by standardising to that date from measurements made between the 3rd and 14th February. Total chick productivity "tot.chick.prod.past.5.yrs": Cumulative five-year total chick productivity (total chicks) was calculated for each year using total counts across Béchervaise Island from the preceding five years. This represents the cumulative pool of pre-breeders on the basis that Adélie penguins typically recruit into the breeding population between the ages of one and five years. Breeding success "bs.3.yr.ave": at Béchervaise Island was measured as the number of chicks crèched (end-January) in relation to the number of nests occupied at the start of incubation (late November and beginning of December). Units of measurement are chicks per occupied nest. Nest and chick counts were obtained annually from on-ground island-wide surveys. Because reproductive performance fluctuates dramatically across years, we calculated three-year rolling averages centred on the year of interest. Resight data: Age of first return to the colony or recruitment into the breeding population “Age first.nesting.all.6.years” were based on resights of birds in their natal colony. Marked birds were resighted via colony-wide detection from a tag reader when they were on nests. Files for each year contain data from resighting with hand-held tag readers across Béchervaise Island including date of resight and the tag number with each file named as “2003_04 resights.xls” for the resights in 2003/04 split-season for example. For resight data outside the years available in this data repository, please contact Data Custodians. Population growth rates: Circum-Antarctic population growth rates: To allow a circum-Antarctic comparison of this populations growth rate with other sites or regions, we performed a literature review of published data or growth rates for estimating a consistent metric of growth rate. Data from this search are included in this dataset along with estimates of population growth rate in this study in file “Circum-Antarctic estimates of population growth rates for Adelie penguins Figure 2.pdf”. Occupied nest counts Mac. Robertson Land: Adult counts were adjusted for phenology-related variable attendance and potential methodology bias to a standard metric (the number of occupied nests at the beginning of the incubation period). The adjustment process is described in detail in Southwell et al. (2013) and propagates the uncertainties from accounting for these biases through to the final estimate of occupied nests. Data include 1000 bootstrap estimates of occupied nests from this procedure for the Mac. Robertson Land area to standardise raw counts to the metric of occupied nests labelled as “O.N.bootstrap.estimates.2009_10” for 2009/10 and 2019/20 which we summarised with the median and 95 percentile limits. Please see manuscript for further details on the standardisation process. Data presented in file “W Mac. Robertson Land Adelie penguin population estimates.xls”. Any data use from this repository in any publication, report or presentation, should include the following acknowledgement in each data file based on the following “Data from Béchervaise Island or Mac. Robertson Land were derived from Australian Antarctic Science projects 2205, 2552, 4088, 4086 and 4518. All procedures were approved through Australian Antarctic Division animal ethics and ATEP approvals.” Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

This dataset comprises oblique aerial photographs of multiple Adelie penguin breeding sites in East Antarctica. The photographs were taken using hand-held digital cameras from fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters used by the Australian Antarctic Program. The aircraft flew at or above the minimum wildlife approach altitude of 750 m with a horizontal offset distance from the site of approximately 500-600m. The date and exact location of the aircraft when each photo was taken is embedded in the EXIF data of each photo. All photographs that were taken are included despite varying image quality due to environmental conditions, camera type and altitude. Generally an attempt was made to photograph the entire breeding site (usually an island, occasionally an outcrop of continental rock) with a series of zoomed, overlapping photos. Sometimes this was not possible when the site was large, and in these cases the overlapping photos covered the locations where colonies were known to exist from previous survey work. In some cases a site was over-flown at an altitude of 1200m so that a single photo of the entire site could be taken. These photos are useful in piecing together the detailed photos. The database of potential Adelie penguin breeding habitat in Southwell et al. (2016a) was used to associate photos to a particular breeding site and structure how the photos are stored. The breeding site database has a unique identifying code of every site of potential breeding habitat in East Antarctica, and the sites are aggregated into sub-groups and then groups. The file structure in which the photos are stored has a combination of ‘group’ and ‘split-year breeding season’ at the top level (eg VES 2015-16 contains all photos in group VES (Vestfold Hills and islands) taken in the 2015-16 breeding season). Within each group-year folder are sub-folders for each breeding site where photos were taken (eg IS_72276 is Gardner Island in the VES group). If an overview photo was taken there are separate sub-folders for overview and detailed photos in the site sub-folder. These data also superseded an earlier dataset of 2009-2016 data - https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/AAS_4088_Adelie_oblique_photos Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.