Leopard Seal Adaptive Capacity in the Southern Ocean

This dataset investigates the adaptive capacity of leopard seals, an enigmatic apex predator, in the rapidly changing Southern Ocean. It combines historical and contemporary data including photographs, census records, life history data, tissue samples, and body morphometrics collected across the Southern Ocean over the last decade. The research aims to quantify dispersal ability, genetic diversity, and phenotypic plasticity to evaluate how the species may respond to polar warming.

Use Cases

• Analyze movement patterns from census and photographic data
• Assess genetic diversity and population structure from tissue samples
• Evaluate phenotypic plasticity using body morphometric measurements

Strengths

• Multimodal data spanning 10+ years
• International multidisciplinary team compilation
• Tight integration with educational outreach

Limitations

• Metadata completeness varies by source
• Freshness should be verified for time-sensitive analyses
• Scale and row count are unknown
• Column-level documentation is absent
• Data may reflect geographic/temporal/source bias inherent to nas a earthdata