Expedition TANGO 1 & 2 At Sea Top Predator survey

Sampling event
Latest version published by SCAR - AntOBIS on Mar 4, 2025 SCAR - AntOBIS
Publication date:
4 March 2025
Published by:
SCAR - AntOBIS
License:
CC0 1.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 152 records in English (274 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (24 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (14 KB)

Description

Expedition TANGO 1 & 2 At Sea Top Predator survey is a sampling event type dataset published by Henri Robert & Bruno Danis. This dataset contains records of Birds and marine mammals based on field observations during TANGO 1 and 2 at Magellanic area, Drake Passage, Western Antarctic Peninsula from February 14th 2023 to March 14th 2023 and from February 7th 2024 to March 5th 2024.

The data is published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes relevant information of darwin core fields. This dataset is published as open data with technical support provided by SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal (biodiversity.aq) (BELSPO project RT/23/ADVANCE). Please follow the guidelines from the SCAR Data Policy (SCAR, 2023) when using the data. Please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via data-biodiversity-aq@naturalsciences.be for any inquiry about this dataset. Issues with dataset can be reported at https://github.com/biodiversity-aq/data-publication/

This work was supported by the “Estimating Tipping points in habitability of ANtarctic benthic ecosystems under GlObal future climate change scenarios” project (TANGO; B2/212/P1/TANGO) funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO).

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 152 records.

3 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Event (core)
152
HumboldtEcologicalInventory 
9272
Occurrence 
734
ExtendedMeasurementOrFact 
302

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Robert H, Danis B (2025). Expedition TANGO 1 & 2 At Sea Top Predator survey. Version 1.4. SCAR - AntOBIS. Samplingevent dataset. https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource?r=tango-topp&v=1.4

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is SCAR - AntOBIS. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 6ddba1a7-e34d-41ae-a14b-017e3c565c87.  SCAR - AntOBIS publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

Samplingevent; Observation; SEABIRDS; MARINE MAMMALS; WESTERN ANTARCTIC PENINSULA; DRAKE PASSAGE; MAGELLANIC AREA

Contacts

Henri Robert
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Bruno Danis
  • Originator
Université libre de Bruxelles
BE
Yi-Ming Gan
  • Point Of Contact
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
BE

Geographic Coverage

Magellanic area, Drake Passage, Western Antarctic Peninsula

Bounding Coordinates South West [-66.931, -66.93], North East [-53.023, -59.453]

Taxonomic Coverage

Birds and marine mammals

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Class Aves, Mammalia
Order Charadriiformes, Carnivora, Sphenisciformes, Anseriformes, Cetartiodactyla, Procellariiformes, Pelecaniformes
Family Balaenidae, Diomedeidae, Laridae, Ziphiidae, Pelecanoididae, Balaenopteridae, Procellariidae, Phocidae, Phalacrocoracidae, Otariidae, Delphinidae, Stercorariidae, Physeteridae, Hydrobatidae, Anatidae, Spheniscidae

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2023-02-14 / 2024-03-05

Project Data

The TANGO1&2 expedition ventured to accumulate new data on the responses of marine ecosystems to shifts in ice regimes in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), taking full advantage of a nimble sampling platform, the R/V Australis, a steel hulled, fully rigged motor sailer. TANGO1 took place between February and March 2023 and 2024, sampling two main locations at different spatial scales. Deploying 14 different types of gear (both traditional and modern), The use of R/V Australis for coastal studies deemed to be extremely efficient, in terms of environmental impact and reactivity, allowing the team to adapt the sampling efforts in function of the weather or anchoring conditions. Fully devoted to the expedition, the ship allowed the Tango team to sample in shallow areas, not accessible to icebreakers and too far away from research stations, and which have been under sampled.

Title Estimating Tipping points in habitability of ANtarctic benthic ecosystems under GlObal future climate change scenarios (TANGO)
Identifier B2/212/P1/TANGO
Funding This work was supported by the “Estimating Tipping points in habitability of ANtarctic benthic ecosystems under GlObal future climate change scenarios” project (TANGO; B2/212/P1/TANGO) funded by the ‘Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO)
Related Projects Antarctic bioDiVersity dAta iNfrastruCturE (ADVANCE)
RT/23/ADVANCE

The personnel involved in the project:

Henri Robert
  • Originator
Bruno Danis

Sampling Methods

Continuous monitoring of birds and marine mammals (species identification and headcount) is performed from the bridge or a spot offering the best visibility on deck. Bird/mammal standard counts are 30 min non-stop observation with binoculars for identification (if required) and age/sex determination when possible. A 600 mm tele objective camera is used for documentation and identification of species that pose identification issues in the field (e.g. Catharacta spp., Pachyptila spp.). GPS ship position and climatic conditions are recorded at each start and end position of counts. Counts are performed during daylight (from dawn to dusk), while visibility permitting (counts must be stopped when visibility is poor due to heavy fog or precipitation) to avoid bias in animal detection and subsequent false population estimates. Equipment used for the survey: - Binoculars Leica Ultravid 10*32 - 600 mm Long lens SONY camera (XR10iv) - Garmin Oregon 600 GPS

Study Extent This dataset describes the abundance and distribution of SEABIRDS, MARINE MAMMALS of the WESTERN ANTARCTIC PENINSULA, DRAKE PASSAGE, MAGELLANIC AREA at ANTARCTIC PENINSULA, SOUTH AMERICA between February 14th 2023 to March 14th 2024 and from Feb.7th 2024 to March 5th 2024.
Quality Control - All records were validated. - Coordinates were converted into decimal latitude and decimal longitude and plotted on map to verify the actual geographical location corresponds to its locality. - All scientific names were checked for typo and matched to the species information backbone of Worlds Register of Marine Species (http://marinespecies.org/) and LSID were assigned to each taxa as scientificNameID. - Event date and time were verified to be compliant with ISO 8601 standard.

Method step description:

  1. n/a

Bibliographic Citations

  1. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. (2023). SCAR Report 42 - September 2022 - SCAR Data Policy (2022). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825314
  2. Longhurst A.R. 2007. Ecological Geography of the Sea. Second Edition. Academic Press. 556pp
  3. Danis, Bruno, Maria Amenabar, Annette Bombosch, Axelle Brusselman, Marius Buydens, Bruno Delille, Martin Dogniez, et al. “Report of the TANGO 1 Expedition to the West Antarctic Peninsula”. Zenodo, June 7, 2023. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8013722
  4. Danis, Bruno. “Report of the TANGO 2 Expedition to the West Antarctic Peninsula”. Zenodo, June 14, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11653690

Additional Metadata

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the “Estimating Tipping points in habitability of ANtarctic benthic ecosystems under GlObal future climate change scenarios” project (TANGO; B2/212/P1/TANGO) funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO).

This dataset is published as open data with technical support provided by SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal (biodiversity.aq) (BELSPO project RT/23/ADVANCE).

Introduction

Preliminary results of the two expeditions TANGO 1 and TANGO 2 are available in the cruise reports:

- Danis, Bruno, Maria Amenabar, Annette Bombosch, Axelle Brusselman, Marius Buydens, Bruno Delille, Martin Dogniez, et al. “Report of the TANGO 1 Expedition to the West Antarctic Peninsula”. Zenodo, June 7, 2023. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8013722.

- Danis, Bruno. “Report of the TANGO 2 Expedition to the West Antarctic Peninsula”. Zenodo, June 14, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11653690

Getting Started

Each sampling event that consists of a start coordinates and end coordinates is expressed as a LINESTRING in footprintWKT. The centroid of the LINESTRING is the decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude with coordinateUncertaintyInMeters that covers the full distance of the LINESTRING. Events with point location have POINT in footprintWKT with decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude with coordinateUncertaintyInMeters. coordinateUncertaintyInMeters include uncertainty estimated from the specification of the binoculars as the coordinates were measured from the GPS device and not the location of the occurrence of organisms.

Similarly, temporal information can be found in the sampling event core under eventDate and eventTime.

Species that were expected to occur during the expedition are listed under targetTaxonomicScope in the Humboldt Extension. Taxa listed in the Occurrence extension (vernacularName, scientificName, scientificNameID as well as the taxonomic classification) are the detections. Non-detections can be inferred by looking at taxa within targetTaxonomicScope that are not listed in the Occurrence extension.

Purpose

The main objectives of the continuous top predators inventories are, on one hand, to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing the quantitative at sea distribution of seabirds and marine mammals in polar marine ecosystems (water masses, fronts, pack ice, ice edge and eddies) and, on the other hand, to detect spatial and temporal evolutions in these distributions with special attention to possible consequences of anthropogenic activity and global climatic changes. As seabirds and marine mammals constitute the upper trophic level in the food chain, their distribution reflects the abundance of prey, like zooplankton, krill, nekton and small fish, and is thereby an indicator for the ecology and biological production of the whole water column.

Improved knowledge of this distribution patterns is therefore of high relevance and interest to identify and localize areas of high biological productivity, and to observe temporal changes due to anthropogenic influences and global change.

Of several abiotic environmental factors, salinity and water temperature were identified as the most influential for bird distribution (Longhurst, 2007). Through monitoring across latitudes, areas of strong variations called transition zones which potentially correspond to borders between water systems or fronts indicating ecological discontinuities, were identified. Based on these considerations, the transects, conducted during the Tango expedition can be clustered into 3 main zones: Magellanic area, Drake passage, and Antarctic Peninsula.

Alternative Identifiers 6ddba1a7-e34d-41ae-a14b-017e3c565c87
https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource?r=tango-topp