Some mammalian and avian species alter their vocal communication signals to reduce masking by background noises (including conspecific calls). A preliminary study suggested that Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) increase the durations of some underwater call types when overlapped by another calling seal. The present study examined the durations and overlapping sequences of Weddell seal calls recorded in Eastern Antarctica. The calling rate, call type (13 major categories), total duration, numbers of elements per call, and overlapping order of 100-200 consecutive calls per recording location were measured. In response to increased conspecific calling rates, the call durations and numbers of elements (within repeated-element call types) did not change or became shorter. Calls that were not overlapped were 3.8 plus or minus 6.1 s long, the first call in a series of overlapped calls was 14.4 plus or minus 15.7 s and subsequent calls in an overlapping series were 6.5 plus or minus 10.3 s. The mean durations of non-overlapped and overlapped calls matched random distributions. Weddell seals do not appear to be adjusting the durations or timing of their calls to purposefully avoid masking each others' calls. The longer a call is, the more likely it is to overlap another call by chance. An implication of this is that Weddell seals may not have the behavioural flexibility to reduce masking by altering the temporal aspects of their calls or calling behaviours as background noises (natural and from shipping) increase.

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 2179 See the link below for public details on this project. Taken from a progress report of the project written in 1998: 60 terrestrial sediments have been taken from Wilkes and Thala Valley tip, with control sites at Robinsons Ridge and Jacks Donga. 50 marine sediments have been taken from the bay offshore from Thala Valley tip. 116 fresh and marine waters have been taken from the fresh water stream flowing through the Thala Valley tip, the tip/sea interface, and the nearshore marine offshore from Thala Valley tip and control sites. Formal integration of these data into a GIS is underway. These data have not been archived until 2012, hence the only data available were sourced from publications arising from the project.

This terrestrial dataset was collected at Ursula Harris’s behest by Craig Hamilton and a Naval Survey team on 09 January 2018 when sea conditions prevented the team from taking bathymetric measurements. This survey was intended to fill gaps in the existing Mawson Station survey data and includes 29 previously unrecorded features comprised of bollards, HF towers, flagpoles, masts, antennae, ionosonde transmitter and receiver, the Mawson Signpost and the Douglas Mawson Bust.

The dataset contains boundaries of Cape petrel nesting areas at numerous breeding sites on islands off the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica. Boundaries of nesting sites were obtained from aligning ground observations and photographs from land or the sea-ice adjacent to the breeding sites onto maps of islands in the region. The observations were made and the photographs taken between 18 and 30 November 2017. Marcus Salton and Kim Kliska made the ground observations, took the photographs and delineated the GIS boundaries representing the nesting areas. The data is a polygon shapefile with each polygon designated Type A or Type B. Type A indicates nests present. Type B indicates this area was searched and no nests were present. Also included are three images showing the Type A polygons and the associated nest counts. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

Access database containing biological and environmental data collected by the Australian Antarctic Division, Human Impacts Benthic Biodiversity group.

This file contains a report of biological field work undertaken in the Casey region during 1976. It includes work done on seals and seabirds. The hard copy of the log has been archived by the Australian Antarctic Division library.

Refer to antFOCE report section 4.4.5 for deployment, sampling and analysis details. https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/AAS_4127_antFOCE_Project4127 One camera and flash unit was mounted on the top middle section of each chamber to take one photo of the sediment every 30 minutes. The download file contains two folders with the photos taken from the 28th of January to the 23rd of February 2015 – one for Chamber A and one for Chamber C. A video time-lapse compilation of the Chamber A images is also included. Malfunctioning cameras deployed on Chamber A and C and on B and D during this same period and at other times, meant that no useful images were obtained. Background The antFOCE experimental system was deployed in O'Brien Bay, approximately 5 kilometres south of Casey station, East Antarctica, in the austral summer of 2014/15. Surface and sub-surface (in water below the sea ice) infrastructure allowed controlled manipulation of seawater pH levels (reduced by 0.4 pH units below ambient) in 2 chambers placed on the sea floor over natural benthic communities. Two control chambers (no pH manipulation) and two open plots (no chambers, no pH manipulation) were also sampled to compare to the pH manipulated (acidified) treatment chambers. Details of the antFOCE experiment can be found in the report – "antFOCE 2014/15 – Experimental System, Deployment, Sampling and Analysis". This report and a diagram indicating how the various antFOCE data sets relate to each other are available at: https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/AAS_4127_antFOCE_Project4127

This dataset contains ice motion observations made under the Australian Antarctic Program, Projects 4593 and 4506. Data was obtained using two Spotter wave buoys (Sofar Ocean Technologies), hereafter wave buoys, and two open-source ice motion loggers, hereafter ice buoys. Instruments were deployed on (land)fast ice on the eastern rim of the Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica (69.2 degr. S, 76.3 degr. E), on 7 December 2019. After the break-up of the ice occurring at the start of January 2020, instrumentation started to drift with the ice. Last transmission recorded was on 10 March 2020. The wave buoys measure their 3-axis motion at 2.5 Hz through GPS and have an accuracy of approximately 2 cm for the recorded significant wave height. The ice buoys measure motion in 9-degrees-of-freedom at 10Hz using a VectorNAV VN-100 IMU, with an accuracy of O(mm) for short waves and O(cm) for long waves. Both instruments also record their geographical location through GPS. Full time series of their motion is processed on board and summaries are send through Iridium. For the ice buoy wave spectra were transmitted roughly every 3 hours. The transmission interval for the wave boys was variable, ranging from every half an hour to every 3 hours. Data transmitted by the wave buoys was either integral wave properties or the complete wave spectrum. In the dataset, WB and IB are abbreviations for wave buoy and ice buoy, respectively. This dataset includes all observations transmitted during the measurement campaign (WB1, WB2, IB1, IB2). E = wave energy spectrum (m2/s); f = wave frequency (Hz); a1, a2, b1, b2 = Fourier coefficients; Hs = significant wave height (m); Tp = peak period (s); Tm01 = mean period (s); Dir_peak/mean = peak and mean wave direction and 'spr' refers to spreading; volt = battery voltage (V). Time is in UTC, and in Matlab’s datenum format (i.e. the number of days since year 0000). The geographical coordinates ‘lat’ and ‘lon’ (latitude and longitude, respectively) are in degrees. Note, as the ice buoys transmit the GPS coordinates and wave data in separate data messages, for the ice buoys ‘time’ refers to the reference time of the wave properties Hs and Tp, whereas ‘GPStime’ refers to the reference time of the geographical coordinates (lat and lon). For the wave buoy, all data is transmitted at the same time.

An occupancy survey in November 2006 found a total of 29 islands in the Robinson Group of islands had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The boundaries of breeding colonies at 27 of these islands with larger populations were subsequently mapped for abundance surveys by circumnavigating the perimeter of sub-colonies on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Legend Cx or Vista C) to log the track taken. The person walking around the sub-colonies maintained a buffer distance of 2-5m between themselves and the penguins at the sub-colony boundary. This buffer distance was reduced to between 1 and 4m 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.

This dataset contains ice motion observations made under the Australian Antarctic Program, projects 4593 and 4506. Data was obtained using two open-source ice motion loggers, hereafter ice buoys. Two ice buoys were deployed on landfast ice just north of the Swain Group, Antarctica (66.2 degr. S, 110.6 degr. E), on 13 October 2020. Instruments were retrieved on 10 November 2020. The ice buoys measure motion in 9-degrees-of-freedom at 10Hz using a VectorNAV VN-100 IMU, with an accuracy of O(mm) for short waves and O(cm) for long waves. Both instruments also record their geographical location through GPS. Full time series of their motion is processed on board and summaries are send through Iridium. Wave spectra and GPS coordinates were transmitted roughly every 4 hours. The dataset comprises the raw data measured by the two ice buoys, we have referred to them as AAD_17 and AAD_18 for administrative reasons. Data output for each buoy is: A = vertical acceleration (mean subtracted) (m/s^2); P = pitch (degrees); R = roll motion (degrees); z = surface elevation (m); t = UTC time (Matlab ‘datenum’ format, i.e., days since year 0000); lat = latitude; lon = longitude. The geographical coordinates ‘lat’ and ‘lon’ are in degrees.