Potential Adelie penguin breeding habitat in the Australian Antarctic Territory

The current distribution of Adelie penguin breeding colonies in the AAT is being mapped through a series of 'occupancy' surveys.

A GIS of potential Adelie penguin breeding habitat was developed by David Smith and Angela Bender from the AADC to structure the overall search effort. Potential Adelie penguin breeding habitat was defined as islands or ice-free land close to the ocean. The GIS spanned across longitudes 36.98 to 158.82 and included 4917 sites of potential breeding habitat (see file 'Sites'). Each site of potential breeding habitat has been given an identifying code and a centroid location with an associated latitude and longitude. More information on the GIS is given in Southwell et al. (2009).

The AAT coastline was broken into groups and subgroups which were surveyed when logistics allowed. For information about the surveys see the metadata record 'Occupancy surveys of Adelie penguin breeding distribution in the Australian Antarctic Territory' with Entry ID: ASAC_2722_Occupancy_Surveys and the associated child metadata records.

Maps of potential breeding habitat in the groups and subgroups were produced by Angela Bender from the GIS to use in the field surveys.

The download files include: 1 Shapefiles created for this study: one representing islands and ice-free continental land and other with the subgroup boundaries. Notes about the development of the shapefiles are included. 2 The maps (as pdf) of potential breeding habitat. 3 An Excel spreadsheet detailing the names of the sites and their locations.