Polar Bear and Prey Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Data from Alaska, 1978-2019

Carbon and nitrogen isotope concentrations measured in polar bear hair and marine mammal prey samples collected from 1978 to 2017 in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Hair was collected from polar bears captured between 1983 and 2017 in the Russian and Alaskan portions of these seas. The dataset was authored by Karyn D. Rode of the United States Geological Survey.

Use Cases

• Analyze trophic level and diet composition of polar bears based on stable isotope ratios in hair.
• Investigate temporal changes in the Arctic marine food web over four decades.
• Compare isotopic signatures between different prey tissues, such as blubber lipids and muscle protein.
• Study geographic variation in polar bear ecology between the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Strengths

• Data spans over 40 years (1978-2019), enabling long-term ecological trend analysis.
• Includes samples from two distinct geographic regions: the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
• Analyzes multiple tissue types from prey (blubber lipids, blubber protein, bulk muscle, lipid-extracted muscle).

Limitations

• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Sample collection is described as opportunistic, which may introduce sampling bias.

Provenance

Source

United States Geological Survey

Collection Method

Hair collected from captured polar bears; prey samples collected opportunistically from kill sites or Native hunter harvests.

Time Range

1978-2019

Geography

Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, Alaska and Russia