Argos Platform Transmitting Terminal (PTT) tracking of Adelie penguins at the South Orkney Islands, from 1999-2014

This dataset comprises Argos PTT data for Adelie penguins, Pygoscelid adeliae, at Signy, Powell and Laurie Islands, part of the South Orkney Islands, between December and January 1999-2014. Tags were deployed across the South Orkney Islands (Signy Island, Powell Island and Laurie Island) between December and January (austral summer). The tracking data encompasses the breeding and post-breeding migratory dispersal of chinstrap penguins. The data includes coordinates for satellite uplinks for each tag and respective trip, along with error values for each satellite uplink. Metadata includes additional information about nesting and morphology, when available.

PTT tags were deployed by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) personnel and supported by Natural Environment Research Council (UK) core funding and WWF grant GB095701

Date (Creation): 2025-04-03

Date (Revision): 2025-04-03

Date (Publication): 2025-04-03

Date (released): 2025-04-03

Edition: 1.0

Unique resource identifier: https://doi.org/10.5285/e3dee1ae-2892-4624-93c5-83fd3af69be6

Codespace: doi

Unique resource identifier: GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02039

Codespace: https://data.bas.ac.uk/

Other citation details: Please cite this item as: Trathan, P.N., Warwick-Evans, V., Lynnes, A., Dunn, M.J., Brown, S., Croxall, J., Morgan, A., Reid, K., & Smith, D. (2025). Argos Platform Transmitting Terminal (PTT) tracking of Adelie penguins at the South Orkney Islands, from 1999-2014 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/e3dee1ae-2892-4624-93c5-83fd3af69be6

Credit: No credit.

Status: Completed

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
British Antarctic Survey	Trathan, Philip		Author
British Antarctic Survey	Warwick-Evans, Victoria		Author
British Antarctic Survey	Dunn, Michael		Author
	Brown, Steve		Author
	Croxall, John		Author
	Morgan, Ash		Author
Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)	Reid, Keith		Author
	Smith, Duncan		Author
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk	Point of contact

Maintenance and update frequency: As needed

Maintenance note: Completed

Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords

Place

Signy Island, South Orkney Islands Antarctica
Powell Island, South Orkney Islands Antarctica
Laurie Island, South Orkney Islands Antarctica

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Habitats and biotopes

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: no limitations to public access

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: no limitations

Use constraints: License

Other constraints: Open Government Licence v3.0

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: This data is governed by the NERC Data Policy: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/nerc/our-policies-and-standards/nerc-data-policy/

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: This data is governed by the NERC data policy and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: There are no access constraints.

Unique resource identifier: url

Codespace: url

Association Type: Cross reference

Spatial representation type: Text, table

Language: English

Character set: UTF8

Topic category

Biota

Begin date: 1999-12-13

End date: 2000-01-09

Supplemental Information: It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data, and that the author be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, please report them to polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk.

Title: European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Geodetic Parameter Registry

Date (Publication): 2008-11-12

Cited responsible party

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
European Petroleum Survey Group		EPSGadministrator@iogp.org	Publisher

Unique resource identifier: urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3031

Version: 6.18.3

Distributor

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk	Distributor

Units of distribution: bytes

Transfer size: 1

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link	http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=e3dee1ae-2892-4624-93c5-83fd3af69be6	Get Data

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Statement: Methodology:

Argos Platform Terminal Transmitters (PTT) devices were attached to 53 Adelie penguins during the breeding season from 1999 to 2014. Each PTT was fitted to the lower medial portion of the back of each penguin using Tesa tape, plastic cable ties and quick-set epoxy resin ensuring the position of the device did not hinder the bird's movement, or access to their preen gland. Each bird was restrained according to BAS procedure.

Device specifications for each deployment year are specified below. Additional information when known is also provided.

1999-2001:

Deployment: 18 birds fitted with devices from mid-December to mid-February.

Device: SirTrack ST-10 (97g) or SirTrack ST-18 (97g), 115 x 44 x 15 mm, 90-degree antenna

2004-2005:

Deployment: 9 birds fitted with devices in December. Handling did not exceed 10 min. Each bird was restrained using a net, according to existing BAS procedure.

Device: KiwiSat 101 transmitters (125x43x20 mm, 107 g) or KiwiSat ST10 transmitters (135x32x18 mm, 107g) Each PTT was set to transmit every 45 s and was equipped with a saltwater switch, which stopped the instrument from transmitting after a 3-h period out of water (a means of conserving battery power), only reactivating after re-submergence. Recovery: Following the attachment procedure, the penguins were released close to their nest sites. All devices were lost during the moult.

2012-2014:

Deployment: 25 birds fitted with devices in January. Handling did not exceed 10 min. Each bird was restrained using a net, according to existing BAS procedure.

Device: Devices (KiwiSat 101 transmitters (125x43x20 mm, 107 g) or KiwiSat ST10 transmitters (135x32x18 mm, 107g). Each PTT was set to transmit every 45 s and was equipped with a saltwater switch, that reduced the transmission rate when the bird hauled out of the water, either on land or on ice. The reduced transmission rate was intended to conserve battery power.

Data quality:

Satellite uplinks are given error values as the loc_class and loc_ind, which have an associated readme file further describing their values. The loc_class field indicates an error value for the location which is determined by the number of satellites the tag connected to. The loc_ind field indicates the IQ (quality indicator), which gives information on the transmitter in terms of X and Y.

PTT location data were obtained from the ARGOS system (www.argossystem.org).

Deployment data is filtered to include uplinks within trip duration provided in the metadata. When trip start and end timestamps were not provided, the first and last uplink for that deployment were used.

Metadata

File identifier: e3dee1ae-2892-4624-93c5-83fd3af69be6 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Hierarchy level name: dataset

Date stamp: 2025-04-03

Metadata standard name: ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata

Metadata standard version: ISO 19115:2003(E)

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk	Point of contact

Overviews

Spatial extent

Provided by

Access to the catalogue

Read here the full details and access to the data.

Simple

Distributor

Metadata

Overviews

Spatial extent

Keywords

Provided by

Share on social sites