Palmer Archipelago (Antarctica) Penguins data package

Installation

Install the development version from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("allisonhorst/penguins")

Data exist in the package as objects penguins (simplified data) and penguins_raw (raw data). See package documentation (?penguins and ?penguins_raw) and below for more information.

About the data

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.

License & citation

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.
Please cite data using the following:
- 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).
- Originally published in: 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

Get data directly from the Environmental Data Initiative:

Get the data directly from EDI using the R code below. Thanks to Julien Brun for the reminder and code below to access & combine them (will get you same data as penguins_raw):

library(tidyverse)

# Adelie penguin data from: https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/abc50eed9138b75f54eaada0841b9b86

uri_adelie <- "https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/dataviewer?packageid=knb-lter-pal.219.3&entityid=002f3893385f710df69eeebe893144ff"

# Gentoo penguin data from: https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/2b1cff60f81640f182433d23e68541ce

uri_gentoo <- "https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/dataviewer?packageid=knb-lter-pal.220.3&entityid=e03b43c924f226486f2f0ab6709d2381"

# Chinstrap penguin data from: https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/409c808f8fc9899d02401bdb04580af7
uri_chinstrap <- "https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/dataviewer?packageid=knb-lter-pal.221.2&entityid=fe853aa8f7a59aa84cdd3197619ef462"

# Combining the URIs
uris <- c(uri_adelie, uri_gentoo, uri_chinstrap)

# Downloading and importing data
# Warning: if using this method to combine tables, it is the user's responsibility to verify units are matching among the different tables
penguins_lter <- map_dfr(uris, read_csv)

Example graphs using the data:

Flipper length vs. body mass

Flipper length vs. culmen length

Simpson's paradox example

Culmen length vs. culmen depth, omitting species:

Culmen length vs. culmen depth, including species:

Opportunities for comparisons between groups

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:

Supplemental artwork

You are invited to use this accompanying artwork (Artwork: @allison_horst):

Meet the penguins:

What are culmen length & depth?

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!):

Additional data use information:

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. 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/."