Data from: Extreme ecological response of a seabird community to unprecedented sea ice cover

Climate change has been predicted to reduce Antarctic sea ice but, instead, sea ice surrounding Antarctica has expanded over the past 30 years, albeit with contrasted regional changes. Here we report a recent extreme event in sea ice conditions in East Antarctica and investigate its consequences on a seabird community. In early 2014, the Dumont d'Urville Sea experienced the highest magnitude sea ice cover (76.8%) event on record (1982–2013: range 11.3–65.3%; mean±95% confidence interval: 27.7% (23.1–32.2%)). Catastrophic effects were detected in the breeding output of all sympatric seabird species, with a total failure for two species. These results provide a new view crucial to predictive models of species abundance and distribution as to how extreme sea ice events might impact an entire community of top predators in polar marine ecosystems in a context of expanding sea ice in eastern Antarctica.气候变化曾被预测会减少南极海冰，但过去30年间，南极周边海冰反而出现扩张，尽管区域变化存在显著差异。在此我们报告了东极洲海冰状况的一次近期极端事件，并探究其对海鸟群落的影响。2014年初，迪蒙·迪维尔海（Dumont d'Urville Sea）出现了有记录以来（1982–2013年：覆盖范围11.3%–65.3%；均值±95%置信区间：27.7%（23.1%–32.2%））海冰覆盖率最高的极端事件（76.8%）。所有同域分布海鸟物种的繁殖产出均遭受灾难性影响，其中两个物种完全繁殖失败。本研究结果为物种丰度与分布的预测模型提供了全新视角，有助于理解在东极洲海冰扩张的背景下，极端海冰事件如何影响极地海洋生态系统中的顶级捕食者群落。