Community composition of seabirds in the Prydz Bay region, derived from at-sea observations of seabirds.

Observations of seabirds at sea have been made by observers on Australian Antarctic ships in the Prydz Bay region during most seasons since 1980/81. Approximately 32000 observations of 26 main species were made from the 1980/81 to 2001/02 seasons. These observations provide a two-decade history of seabird activity in this region of the Antarctic. This project used clustering techniques to identify the communities within the seabird populations.Summary of resultsWe found three distinct communities of seabirds within Prydz Bay. The first comprised all nine species of seabird which breed in the Prydz Bay area (emperor and Adelie penguins, snow, Cape, and Antarctic petrels, southern giant petrels, southern fulmars, Wilson's storm petrel, and south polar skuas). The second comprised those species which breed in sub-Antarctic or temperate regions and forage in Prydz Bay in the summer months (including many species of albatrosses and shearwaters). There was an overlap of these two communities which had a broad mix of species.The spatial and temporal ranges of these communities is given in this data set.The raw data for this dataset was generated through ASAC project 2208 - Distribution and abundance of seabirds in the Southern Indian Ocean, 1980/81+ (ASAC_2208_seabirds).The fields in this dataset are:YearMonthDayHourMinuteVoyageLatitudeLongitudeAssemblageConstancyFidelity