Data were collected and made available by Dr. Kristen Gorman and the Palmer Station, Antarctica LTER, a member of the Long Term Ecological Research Network.
Thank you to Dr. Gorman, Palmer Station LTER and the LTER Network! Special thanks to Marty Downs (Director, LTER Network Office) for help regarding the data license & use.
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Data are available by CC-0 license in accordance with the Palmer Station LTER Data Policy and the LTER Data Access Policy for Type I data.
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Please cite this data using: Gorman KB, Williams TD, Fraser WR (2014) Ecological Sexual Dimorphism and Environmental Variability within a Community of Antarctic Penguins (Genus Pygoscelis). PLoS ONE 9(3): e90081. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090081
The data folder contains two CSV files. For intro courses/examples, you probably want to use the first one (penguins_size.csv).
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penguins_size.csv: Simplified data from original penguin data sets. Contains variables:
species: penguin species (Chinstrap, Adélie, or Gentoo)culmen_length_mm: culmen length (mm)culmen_depth_mm: culmen depth (mm)flipper_length_mm: flipper length (mm)body_mass_g: body mass (g)island: island name (Dream, Torgersen, or Biscoe) in the Palmer Archipelago (Antarctica)sex: penguin sex
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penguins_lter.csv: Original combined data for 3 penguin species (aggregated from individual links below)
See below for links and citations to original data and metadata.
Culmen length vs. culmen depth, omitting species:
Culmen length vs. culmen depth, including species:
There are a number of questions you could ask about differences between groups. Here are a couple histograms to consider.
Flipper length histograms:
Body mass histograms:
You are invited to use this accompanying artwork (Artwork: @allison_horst):
The culmen is "the upper ridge of a bird's beak" (definition from Oxford Languages).
For this penguin data, the culmen length and culmen depth are measured as shown below (thanks Kristen Gorman for clarifying!):
These data are originally published in:
Anyone interested in publishing the data should contact Dr. Kristen Gorman about analysis and working together on any final products.
From Gorman et al. (2014): "Data reported here are publicly available within the PAL-LTER data system (datasets #219, 220, and 221): http://oceaninformatics.ucsd.edu/datazoo/data/pallter/datasets. These data are additionally archived within the United States (US) LTER Network’s Information System Data Portal: https://portal.lternet.edu/. Individuals interested in using these data are therefore expected to follow the US LTER Network’s Data Access Policy, Requirements and Use Agreement: https://lternet.edu/data-access-policy/."
From the LTER data access policy: "The consumer of these data (“Data User” herein) has an ethical obligation to cite it appropriately in any publication that results from its use. The Data User should realize that these data may be actively used by others for ongoing research and that coordination may be necessary to prevent duplicate publication. The Data User is urged to contact the authors of these data if any questions about methodology or results occur. Where appropriate, the Data User is encouraged to consider collaboration or coauthorship with the authors. The Data User should realize that misinterpretation of data may occur if used out of context of the original study. While substantial efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of data and associated documentation, complete accuracy of data sets cannot be guaranteed. All data are made available “as is.” The Data User should be aware, however, that data are updated periodically and it is the responsibility of the Data User to check for new versions of the data. The data authors and the repository where these data were obtained shall not be liable for damages resulting from any use or misinterpretation of the data. Thank you."
Original data accessed via the Environmental Data Initiative:
Adélie penguins: Palmer Station Antarctica LTER and K. Gorman. 2020. Structural size measurements and isotopic signatures of foraging among adult male and female Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) nesting along the Palmer Archipelago near Palmer Station, 2007-2009 ver 5. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/98b16d7d563f265cb52372c8ca99e60f (Accessed 2020-06-08).
Gentoo penguins: Palmer Station Antarctica LTER and K. Gorman. 2020. Structural size measurements and isotopic signatures of foraging among adult male and female Gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) nesting along the Palmer Archipelago near Palmer Station, 2007-2009 ver 5. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/7fca67fb28d56ee2ffa3d9370ebda689 (Accessed 2020-06-08).
Chinstrap penguins: Palmer Station Antarctica LTER and K. Gorman. 2020. Structural size measurements and isotopic signatures of foraging among adult male and female Chinstrap penguin (Pygoscelis antarcticus) nesting along the Palmer Archipelago near Palmer Station, 2007-2009 ver 6. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/c14dfcfada8ea13a17536e73eb6fbe9e (Accessed 2020-06-08).