Stable Isotope Analysis of Historical Whale Bone Collagen from the South Atlantic

This dataset provides stable isotope values (delta13C, delta15N) of 174 bone collagen samples collected in the western South Atlantic. Collagen was extracted from bone samples for six whale species as follows: Antarctic blue whale (n = 20), fin whale (n = 64), humpback whale (n = 46), sei whale (n = 40), southern right whale (n = 1), and sperm whale (n = 3). Bone samples were collected from ex-whaling sites across three locations in the western South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Orkneys. This samples were used to estimate niche partitioning and diet specialism of whale species in the western South Atlantic.

Funding:
NE/L002507/1 (a NERC-Cambridge ESS Doctoral Training Partnership studentship from the Natural Environment Research Council awarded to Danielle L. Buss) and the Ecosystems component of the British Antarctic Survey Polar Science for Planet Earth Programme, funded by NERC.