Mercury concentrations in Antarctic krill from South Georgia, South Orkney Islands, and West Antarctica Peninsula (2013-2019)

This data set presents total mercury (Hg) concentrations measured from Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) sampled between December 2013 and September 2019 from South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, and the West Antarctic Peninsula. The data were produced to support a more thorough understanding of how Hg concentration varies in krill and how that might affect the krill-reliant Antarctic food web, especially in the context of a changing climate. Long-term data sets are needed for these purposes but are missing from Southern Ocean environments, given the difficulty and costs of accessing these remote regions. To fulfill this gap, we collaborated with AkerBiomarine, a Norwegian krill fishing and biotech company, to obtain a unique and almost contiguous data set, with fortnightly samples for most months (except October and November) throughout the collection period. We aimed to establish a baseline against which past and future studies could be compared for Hg concentrations in Antarctic krill, and to investigate any potential influence of biological (krill size, sex, and life stage) and abiotic (geographic location and temporal variation) variables in these concentrations.