Southern giant petrels AAT

• Other Authors: WIENECKE, BARBARA (hasPrincipalInvestigator), WIENECKE, BARBARA (processor), Australian Antarctic Data Centre (publisher)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Australian Antarctic Data Centre
• Subjects: biota; environment; location; ALBATROSSES/PETRELS AND ALLIES; EARTH SCIENCE; BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION; ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES; BIRDS; POPULATION DYNAMICS; BIOSPHERE; ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS; SPECIES/POPULATION INTERACTIONS; Frazier Islands; Giganteus Island; Hawker Island; Macronectus giganteus; Southern Giant Petrel; VISUAL OBSERVATIONS; FIELD SURVEYS; OCEAN > SOUTHERN OCEAN; CONTINENT > ANTARCTICA; GEOGRAPHIC REGION > POLAR; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Australian Antarctic Territory; Giganteus; Frazier; Giganteus, Island; Antarc*; Antarctica; Giant Petrel; Giant Petrels
• Online Access: https://researchdata.ands.org.au/southern-giant-petrels-aat/701553; https://doi.org/10.26179/5d26ceead3067; https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/sgp_census_a; http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-617536

The data set is a compilation of all available information on counts of Southern giant petrel populations at three locations in the Australian Antarctic Territory (specifically the Frazier Islands, Giganteus Island and Hawker Island). Data (location, date, count, count unit, method, collator, reference) were gathered from the published literature. Where questions arose about the data, e.g. when the methods were unclear, we attempted to contact the collators of the information in person to verify when and how the counts were conducted. The difficulty was that even within a season notes could be collated by different personnel. As names were not always noted it was often impossible to establish who had made a certain observation. We searched permit records and also checked station leaders' annual reports, field trip reports, biology logs and any other source of information we could find. Finally, we also obtained the records of banded Southern Giant petrels from the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme (ABBBS, Department for the Environment, Canberra). All information was entered into a spreadsheet noting dates, counts, units of counts, methods and whether or not they could be verified, as well as any comments made either in the field notes or log books or by researchers who we contacted directly. The downloadable dataset contains an excel spreadsheet of compiled data, plus a list of all literature sources. Taken from the abstract of the referenced paper: The determination of the conservation status for a species at risk of extinction is based largely upon consistent change in the population size. In long-lived species, such as seabirds, long-term monitoring is required to establish the extent of the natural variability in a population and to detect true change. As studies spanning several generations within the same population are rare, researchers may turn to historically collected census information to expand the time frame of their studies. While in principle a valid approach, several limitations need to be considered to use historical information appropriately. Census information, collated from the 1950s until present, of three populations of southern giant petrels Macronectus giganteus in the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT) is used to highlight potential limitations inherent in historical data. We demonstrate the importance of census time and count units when investigating potential changes in populations. Published accounts indicate that the numbers of southern giant petrels in the AAT have decreased significantly since their discovery and that more recently some recovery has taken place. However, for two of the three populations we could not find evidence supporting a change.