Palmer Station LTER Penguins

Data are generously collected and made available by Dr. Kristen Gorman and the Palmer Station, Antarctica LTER, a member of the Long Term Ecological Research Network.

THANK YOU Dr. Gorman, Palmer Station LTER and the LTER Network!!! See complete data information & citations below.

Summary:

Data for 3 penguin species (Chinstrap, Adélie, & Gentoo) have been combined into a single CSV, penguins_lter.csv. A simplified subset penguins_size.csv is also included, which contains four penguin size measurements (culmen length, culmen depth, flipper length, and body mass) for the 3 species, along with island and sex.

Feel free to use the illustrations below for your teaching materials (Artwork: @allison_horst).

Meet the penguins:

What is culmen length & depth?

Example graph using the data:

Data:

Data are from:

Gorman KB, Williams TD, Fraser WR (2014) Ecological Sexual Dimorphism and Environmental Variability within a Community of Antarctic Penguins (Genus Pygoscelis). PLoS ONE 9(3): e90081. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090081

See the full paper HERE.

Original data access and use:

From Gorman et al.: "Data reported here are publicly available within the PAL-LTER data system (datasets #219, 220, and 221): http://oceaninformatics.ucsd.edu/datazoo/data/pallter/datasets. These data are additionally archived within the United States (US) LTER Network’s Information System Data Portal: https://portal.lternet.edu/. Individuals interested in using these data are therefore expected to follow the US LTER Network’s Data Access Policy, Requirements and Use Agreement: https://lternet.edu/data-access-policy/."

Anyone interested in publishing the data should contact Dr. Kristen Gorman about analysis and working together on any final products.

Links to original data from LTER Network Data Portal:

Data accessed via the LTER Data Portal:

• Chinstrap penguins: https://portal.lternet.edu/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=knb-lter-pal.220.3
• Adelie penguins: https://portal.lternet.edu/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=knb-lter-pal.219.3
• Gentoo penguins: https://portal.lternet.edu/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=knb-lter-pal.221.2

Full data citations:

• Gorman K. 2017. Structural size measurements and isotopic signatures of foraging among adult male and female chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) nesting along the Palmer Archipelago near Palmer Station, 2007-2009. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/2b1cff60f81640f182433d23e68541ce.

• Gorman K. 2017. Structural size measurements and isotopic signatures of foraging among adult male and female Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) nesting along the Palmer Archipelago near Palmer Station, 2007-2009. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/abc50eed9138b75f54eaada0841b9b86.

• Gorman K. 2017. Structural size measurements and isotopic signatures of foraging among adult male and female gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) nesting along the Palmer Archipelago near Palmer Station, 2007-2009. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/409c808f8fc9899d02401bdb04580af7.