Abstract:
The use of automated systems to record the identity of individual penguins and their movements in and out of a colony can provide an effective means of studying penguin biology remotely. In 2002 an automatic gateway was installed at the only access point to the Macaroni Penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus) colony at Fairy Point, Bird Island. Taking advantage of the colony's geography, which ensured that the birds have only one route between the colony and the sea, the gateway initially recorded bird identities from implanted radio frequency identification transponders (RFID tags). In 2009 a weighbridge was installed which records the weight of each bird and the direction of travel and from 2011 onwards the two systems, RFID antenna and weighbridge, were built into the same unit meaning it was now possible to confidently match the crossing data with bird identities.
Keywords:
Eudyptes chrysolophus, Macaroni Penguin, weighbridge
| Use Constraints: | This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ |
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| Creation Date: | 2019-07-16 |
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| Dataset Progress: | In Work |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | UK Polar Data Centre |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
| Reference: | Afanasyev A, Buldyrev SV, Dunn MJ, Robst J, Preston M, Bremner SF, Briggs DR, Brown R, Adlard S, Peat HJ (2015) Increasing accurary: a new design and algorithm for automatically measuring weights, travel direction and radio frequency identification (RFID) of penguins. PLOS one | |
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| Lineage: | The weighbridge is deployed at the start of the breeding season, before the Macaroni penguins begin to arrive. The bridge consists of two horizontal, rectangular, "marine plywood" panels set one above another and separated by two load cells, one at each end. When a penguin enters the bridge the system is triggered to record. The load cells are powered up and the force on both cells is measured 200 times a second for 3.7 seconds. The device records the sum of both load cells, this figure is used to calculate the penguin weight, and the value of the land side load cell, which is used to calculate direction of travel. The RFID antenna is also triggered to record. All records are time stamped. Further information on the set up of the weighbridge as well as the calculations used to establish bird weight can be found in Afanasyev et al. (2015). The weighbridge is calibrated and the data downloaded regularly: usually weekly at the height of the season. All data were collected under permit from the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. |
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| Ownership: | ||
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2011-10-26 |
| End Date | N/A |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -54.0058 |
| Northernmost | -54.0058 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -38.0418 |
| Easternmost | -38.0418 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | South Georgia Island |
| Detailed Location | Fairy Point, Bird Island |
| Data Storage: | The data are stored in an Oracle database managed by the Scientific Data Manager (Biological Focus), UK PDC |
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