Abstract:
This dataset comprises Global Positioning System (GPS) data for gentoo penguins, Pygoscelid papua, at Signy Island, South Orkneys Islands, from December 2011 to January 2016 (austral summer). Gentoo penguins were fitted with GPS tags at Signy Island to better understand their movement for seabird conservation and management. This data includes GPS positions at specified intervals for deployed tags, with additional metadata on the morphology of the birds, their deployment and breeding.
Work was carried out by personnel at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and was funded by Natural Environment Research Council (UK) core funding to BAS.
Keywords:
GPS, Gentoo penguin, Global Positioning System, Pygoscelid papua, Signy Island, Tracking
Ratcliffe, N., Manco, F., & Manthorpe, S.J. (2025). GPS tracks gentoo penguins at Signy Island, South Orkneys Islands, 2011-2016 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/9cb04ca6-f88f-4368-b715-45ff73ff81eb
| Access Constraints: | There are no access constraints on this dataset. |
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| Use Constraints: | This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. |
| Creation Date: | 2025-03-03 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Planned |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | UK Polar Data Centre |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Dr Norman Ratcliffe |
| Role(s) | Investigator, Technical Contact |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Fabrizio Manco |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | Anglia Ruskin University |
| Name | Ms Sarah J Manthorpe |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
| Reference: | Dias, M.P., Carneiro, A.P.B., Warwick-Evans, V., Harris, C., Lorenz, K., Lascelles, B., Clewlow, H.L., Dunn, M.J., Hinke, J.T., Kim, J.H., Kokubun, N., Manco, F., Ratcliffe, N., Santos, M., Takahashi, A., Trivelpiece, W., Trathan, P.N. (2018) Identification of marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas for penguins around the South Shetland Islands and South Orkney Islands. Ecology and Evolution 8(21): 10520-10529. doi: 10.1002/ece3.4519. | |
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| Quality: | Files were included the timestamp, latitude and longitude in decimal degrees. Any NaN or '0.00' values (in latitude and longitude) were removed. Where the sex of the bird was not known, 'U' was used in the metadata file. |
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| Lineage: | Global Positioning system (GPS) devices were fitted to 11 gentoo penguins on Signy Island in December, over two seasons between 2011 to 2016. Breeding penguins were caught during incubation and guard periods and fitted with GPS loggers (Sirtrack Fastloc) using Tessa tape and a two-part quick-setting glue. Handling time did not exceed 10 minutes for deployment and 5 minutes for retrieval. Loggers were always less than 1 percent of the bird's body mass. Devices were retrieved on average after 4.7 days. GPS loggers recorded locations every 4 minutes, with longer intervals if the GPS could not connect to satellites (when the bird was underwater). The number of deployed and retrieved tags per year are as follows: 2013-2014: 10 2015-2016: 1 |
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| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2011-12-21 |
| End Date | 2016-01-25 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -60.67345 |
| Northernmost | -56.37922 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -45.62246 |
| Easternmost | -45.48503 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Antarctica |
| Detailed Location | Signy Island, South Orkney Islands |
| Sensor(s): |
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| Data Collection: | Sirtrack Fastloc 33 F2G133A (38.4 g in air, 65 x 28 x 22 mm) with 40 mm whip antenna Sirtrack Fastloc 33 F3G133A (31.0 g in air, 63 x 24 x 22 mm) with 40 mm whip antenna |
| Data Storage: | Deployment IDs given as the following: Two code abbreviation for the island + one letter code for the species + deployment number Two-code abbreviation: Signy Island: SI One letter code for species: Gentoo penguin: G Deployment IDs were used as file names. File names include '_GPS' abbreviation. Deployment IDs match with related TDR dataset. Files that are linked have the same filename except for the last abbreviation: '_GPS' or '_TDR'. Deployment ID structure also matches related datasets on GPS and TDR tracks for other Pygoscelids tracked from the South Orkney islands. 11x .csv files with data (1 per deployment) 1x .csv file with metadata 1x. txt file with header metadata including citation and DOI |
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