SCAR Southern Ocean Diet and Energetics Database

Information related to diet and energy flow is fundamental to a diverse range of Antarctic and Southern Ocean biological and ecosystem studies. This metadata record describes a database of such information being collated by the SCAR Expert Groups on Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics (EG-ABI) and Birds and Marine Mammals (EG-BAMM) to assist the scientific community in this work. It includes data related to diet and energy flow from conventional (e.g. gut content) and modern (e.g. molecular) studies, stable isotopes, fatty acids, and energetic content. It is a product of the SCAR community and open for all to participate in and use. Data have been drawn from published literature, existing trophic data collections, and unpublished data. The database comprises five principal tables, relating to (i) direct sampling methods of dietary assessment (e.g. gut, scat, and bolus content analyses, stomach flushing, and observed predation), (ii) stable isotopes, (iii) lipids, (iv) DNA-based diet assessment, and (v) energetics values. The schemas of these tables are described below, and a list of the sources used to populate the tables is provided with the data. A range of manual and automated checks were used to ensure that the entered data were as accurate as possible. These included visual checking of transcribed values, checking of row or column sums against known totals, and checking for values outside of allowed ranges. Suspicious entries were re-checked against original source. Notes on names: Names have been validated against the World Register of Marine Species (http://www.marinespecies.org/). For uncertain taxa, the most specific taxonomic name has been used (e.g. prey reported in a study as "Pachyptila sp." will appear here as "Pachyptila"; "Cephalopods" will appear as "Cephalopoda"). Uncertain species identifications (e.g. "Notothenia rossii?" or "Gymnoscopelus cf. piabilis") have been assigned the genus name (e.g. "Notothenia", "Gymnoscopelus"). Original names have been retained in a separate column to allow future cross-checking. WoRMS identifiers (APHIA_ID numbers) are given where possible. Grouped prey data in the diet sample table need to be handled with a bit of care. Papers commonly report prey statistics aggregated over groups of prey - e.g. one might give the diet composition by individual cephalopod prey species, and then an overall record for all cephalopod prey. The PREY_IS_AGGREGATE column identifies such records. This allows us to differentiate grouped data like this from unidentified prey items from a certain prey group - for example, an unidentifiable cephalopod record would be entered as Cephalopoda (the scientific name), with "N" in the PREY_IS_AGGREGATE column. A record that groups together a number of cephalopod records, possibly including some unidentifiable cephalopods, would also be entered as Cephalopoda, but with "Y" in the PREY_IS_AGGREGATE column. See the notes on PREY_IS_AGGREGATE, below. There are two related R packages that provide data access and functionality for working with these data. See the package home pages for more information: https://github.com/SCAR/sohungry and https://github.com/SCAR/solong. Data table schemas Sources data table - SOURCE_ID: The unique identifier of this source - DETAILS: The bibliographic details for this source (e.g. "Hindell M (1988) The diet of the royal penguin Eudyptes schlegeli at Macquarie Island. Emu 88:219–226") - NOTES: Relevant notes about this source – if it’s a published paper, this is probably the abstract - DOI: The DOI of the source (paper or dataset), in the form "10.xxxx/yyyy" Diet data table - RECORD_ID: The unique identifier of this record - SOURCE_ID: The identifier of the source study from which this record was obtained (see corresponding entry in the sources data table) - SOURCE_DETAILS, SOURCE_DOI: The details and DOI of the source, copied from the sources data table for convenience - ORIGINAL_RECORD_ID: The identifier of this data record in its original source, if it had one - LOCATION: The name of the location at which the data was collected - WEST: The westernmost longitude of the sampling region, in decimal degrees (negative values for western hemisphere longitudes) - EAST: The easternmost longitude of the sampling region, in decimal degrees (negative values for western hemisphere longitudes) - SOUTH: The southernmost latitude of the sampling region, in decimal degrees (negative values for southern hemisphere latitudes) - NORTH: The northernmost latitude of the sampling region, in decimal degrees (negative values for southern hemisphere latitudes) - ALTITUDE_MIN: The minimum altitude of the sampling region, in metres - ALTITUDE_MAX: The maximum altitude of the sampling region, in metres - DEPTH_MIN: The shallowest depth of the sampling, in metres - DEPTH_MAX: The deepest depth of the sampling, in metres - OBSERVATION_DATE_START: The start of the sampling period - OBSERVATION_DATE_END: The end of the sampling period. If sampling was carried out over multiple seasons (e.g. during January of 2002 and January of 2003), this will be the first and last dates (in this example, from 1-Jan-2002 to 31-Jan-2003) - PREDATOR_NAME: The name of the predator. This may differ from predator_name_original if, for example, taxonomy has changed since the original publication, if the original publication had spelling errors or used common (not scientific) names - PREDATOR_NAME_ORIGINAL: The name of the predator, as it appeared in the original source - PREDATOR_APHIA_ID: The numeric identifier of the predator in the WoRMS taxonomic register - PREDATOR_WORMS_RANK, PREDATOR_WORMS_KINGDOM, PREDATOR_WORMS_PHYLUM, PREDATOR_WORMS_CLASS, PREDATOR_WORMS_ORDER, PREDATOR_WORMS_FAMILY, PREDATOR_WORMS_GENUS: The taxonomic details of the predator, from the WoRMS taxonomic register - PREDATOR_GROUP_SOKI: A descriptive label of the group to which the predator belongs (currently used in the Southern Ocean Knowledge and Information wiki, http://soki.aq) - PREDATOR_LIFE_STAGE: Life stage of the predator, e.g. "adult", "chick", "larva", "juvenile". Note that if a food sample was taken from an adult animal, but that food was destined for a juvenile, then the life stage will be "juvenile" (this is common with seabirds feeding chicks) - PREDATOR_BREEDING_STAGE: Stage of the breeding season of the predator, if applicable, e.g. "brooding", "chick rearing", "nonbreeding", "posthatching" - PREDATOR_SEX: Sex of the predator: "male", "female", "both", or "unknown" - PREDATOR_SAMPLE_COUNT: The number of predators for which data are given. If (say) 50 predators were caught but only 20 analysed, this column will contain 20. For scat content studies, this will be the number of scats analysed - PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID: The identifier of the predator(s). If predators are being reported at the individual level (i.e. PREDATOR_SAMPLE_COUNT = 1) then PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID is the individual animal ID. Alternatively, if the data values being entered here are from a group of predators, then the PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID identifies that group of predators. PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID values are unique within a source (i.e. SOURCE_ID, PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID pairs are globally unique). Rows with the same SOURCE_ID and PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID values relate to the same predator individual or group of individuals, and so can be combined (e.g. for prey diversity analyses). Subsamples are indicated by a decimal number S.nnn, where S is the parent PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID, and nnn (001-999) is the subsample number. Studies will sometimes report detailed prey information for a large sample, but then report prey information for various subsamples of that sample (e.g. broken down by predator sex, or sampling season). In the simplest case, the diet of each predator will be reported only once in the study, and in this scenario the PREDATOR_SAMPLE_ID values will simply be 1 to N (for N predators). - PREDATOR_SIZE_MIN, PREDATOR_SIZE_MAX, PREDATOR_SIZE_MEAN, PREDATOR_SIZE_SD: The minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation of the size of the predators in the sample - PREDATOR_SIZE_UNITS: The units of size (e.g. "mm") - PREDATOR_SIZE_NOTES: Notes on the predator size information, including a definition of what the size value represents (e.g. "total length", "standard length") - PREDATOR_MASS_MIN, PREDATOR_MASS_MAX, PREDATOR_MASS_MEAN, PREDATOR_MASS_SD: The minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation of the mass of the predators in the sample - PREDATOR_MASS_UNITS: The units of mass (e.g. "g", "kg") - PREDATOR_MASS_NOTES: Notes on the predator mass information, including a definition of what the mass value represents - PREY_NAME: The scientific name of the prey item (corrected, if necessary) - PREY_NAME_ORIGINAL: The name of the prey item, as it appeared in the original source PREY_APHIA_ID: The numeric identifier of the prey in the WoRMS taxonomic register - PREY_WORMS_RANK, PREY_WORMS_KINGDOM, PREY_WORMS_PHYLUM, PREY_WORMS_CLASS, PREY_WORMS_ORDER, PREY_WORMS_FAMILY, PREY_WORMS_GENUS: The taxonomic details of the prey, from the WoRMS taxonomic register - PREY_GROUP_SOKI: A descriptive label of the group to which the prey belongs (currently used in the Southern Ocean Knowledge and Information wiki, http://soki.aq) - PREY_IS_AGGREGATE: "Y" indicates that this row is an aggregation of other rows in this data source. For example, a study might give a number of individual squid species records, and then an overall squid record that encompasses the individual records. Use the PREY_IS_AGGREGATE information to avoid double-counting during analyses - PREY_LIFE_STAGE: Life stage of the prey (e.g. "adult", "chick", "larva") - PREY_SEX: The sex of the prey ("male", "female", "both", or "unknown"). Note that this is generally "unknown" - PREY_SAMPLE_COUNT: The number of prey individuals from which size and mass measurements were made (note: this is NOT the total number of individuals of this prey