Observations of Weddell seal injuries, including nature, size, location, healing time, and associated infection microorganisms, were collected by SCIOPS. Data includes swabs from infected wounds and from the mouth, skin, blood, urine, and feces to trace infection sources. The dataset was last updated in February 1967.
Use Cases
- Modeling time_taken_for_wounds_to_heal based on wound_nature, size, and location.
- Identifying common infection_microorganisms from wound swabs and correlating them with source swabs from mouth or skin.
- Analyzing injury frequency for tagged_individuals to assess individual risk factors.
- Characterizing the cause_of_infections by comparing microorganisms in wounds to those found in blood, urine, and feces samples.
Strengths
- Includes longitudinal data on healing time for tagged individuals.
- Contains microbiological data from multiple sample types (wounds, mouth, skin, blood, urine, feces).
Limitations
- Dataset is from 1967, making it temporally stale for contemporary ecological studies.
- Sample size and row count are unknown, potentially limiting statistical power.
Provenance
- Source
- SCIOPS via NASA EarthData.
- Collection Method
- Field observations and sample collection (swabs) from seals, with data recorded in notes and diagrams.
- Time Range
- Observations conducted during the early pupping season.
- Freshness
- 1967-02-21
- Geography
- Dellbridge Islands, Turk's Head, Glacier Tongue, Turtle Rock, and Scott Base/Cape Armitage area, Antarctica.