During several austral summers covering a 13 year period, we collected a random sample of body feathers from chicks of 11 sympatric species of Procellariiform (wandering albatross Diomedea exulans -79 individuals in total-, black-browed albatross Thalassarche melanophris - 51-, grey-headed albatross T. chrysostoma - 58 -, light-mantled sooty albatross Phoebetria palpebrata - 34 -, northern giant petrel Macronectes halli - 59 -, southern giant petrel M. giganteus - 60 -, white-chinned petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis - 39 -, blue petrel Halobaena caerulea - 19 - , Antarctic prion Pachyptila desolata - 19 -, South Georgian diving petrel Pelecanoides georgicus - 2 - and common diving petrel P. urinatrix - 6 -) to analyse Delta15N and Delta13C.

This dataset summarises the raw GPS locations obtained by satellite tracking of two southern right whales tagged at South Georgia island on 28th January 2020. One whale, genetically identified as a female, was tracked for 117 days (4,860 tag locations provided) and travelled ~5818km including a short period of time at the ice edge. The second whale, genetically identified as a male, was tracked for 238 days (8,492 tag locations provided) and travelled ~9,885km, including migration through the national waters of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Funding: EU BEST 2.0 Medium Grant 1594, DARWIN PLUS award DPLUS057 and funding from the South Georgia Heritage Trust and Friends of South Georgia Island.

Microscopy data on the percentages of liverwort stem length colonised by (i) stained hyphal coils, (ii) stained septate hyphae and (iii) dark septate hyphae, and (iv) percentages of rhizoids colonised by hyphae, in 16 leafy liverwort species sampled from sub-Antarctic South Georgia. Specimens were collected in 2011 and 2016 from 12 sites on the Thatcher Peninsula, South Georgia. The specimens have been deposited in the British Antarctic Survey herbarium. This project was funded by NERC under the British Antarctic Survey Long Term Monitoring programme.

The weights of fledging Gentoo penguin chicks at Maiviken have been monitored since 2010. The colony at Maiviken, can have over 1000 breeding pairs. Each year, just before their departure from the colony, a sample of 50 fledgling birds are weighed as part of a long-term monitoring programme. These data are submitted to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) as part of their Ecosystem Monitoring Programme (CEMP). This work was funded by Natural Environment Research Council (UK) core funding to the British Antarctic Survey.

At-sea surveys of seabirds around South Georgia were undertaken during the austral winter (May to September) in 2010 and 2011. Surveys were conducted in set transects which covered areas primarily targeted by the krill industry, and as well as areas not normally fished. Surveys consisted of simultaneous recordings of seabirds and marine mammals on the surface of the water within a continuous 300m wide strip transect on one side of the vessel, and ''snapshots'' at 300m intervals. Species, positional, environmental and trip data were recorded for each survey. The aim of the project was to investigate the potential interactions between higher predators and the South Georgia krill fishery. These surveys were carried out as part of a wider Overseas Territories Environment Programme (OTEP; SGS701) funded project ''Identifying important and vulnerable marine areas for conservation at South Georgia.'' Phil Trathan (BAS) applied for this grant.

The data include size, sex, location and morphological measurements and of Muraenolepis specimens included in Fitzcharles et al. (2021). The morphometric data were primarily collected from fish captured during South Georgia Groundfish Surveys in 2003, 2004 and 2005, with additional data obtained from type specimens and extracted from published descriptions of Muraenolepididae. For genetic studies, tissue samples from the South Georgia specimens were supplemented by additional tissue samples from Muraenolepis in other parts of the Southern Ocean. Source, location and depth of capture are included for all specimens that were sequenced, together with sequence Accession Numbers (to the DNA Database of Japan) for Cox 1 and 16S rRNA sequences. The work was primarily funded by the Government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands and was a component part of Elaine Fitzcharles'' PhD (University of St Andrews).

This dataset contains daily positions of the A68 family of giant icebergs during their drift through the Scotia Sea and South Atlantic between 2020-09-01 and 2021-04-16. Positions were obtained using optical imagery collected by MODIS Aqua and Terra satellites. For the parent iceberg A68A, the evolving dimensions (long and short axis length, area) are also provided, based on Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery acquired by Copernicus Sentinel 1A and 1B satellites. This data can be used to plot the trajectories of the A68 icebergs during their drift in the Scotia Sea and near South Georgia. This data was collected during an MSc/MRes student project at the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, in 2020/21. The work was not supported by any funding or research grants.

We present a new bathymetric compilation of the greater South Georgia region, here defined by a bounding box of ~900km (45W to 19W) by ~580km (63S to 50S) and covering an area of 530,000 km2. The region includes the South Georgia shelf, the Shag Rock shelf (to the west of South Georgia), the surrounding continental slopes and adjacent deep sea. This bathymetry grid was compiled from a variety of different data sources including multibeam swath bathymetry collected from scientific cruises undertaken by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the Institute of Geophysics, University of Texas. The grid has been constructed using a layered hierarchy dependent on accuracy of each dataset. The data is available as a 100m resolution GeoTIFF, ESRI ascii grid or KMZ file of elevation data along with a shapefile indicating the spatial coverage of all the contributing datasets. This work was supported by the National Environmental Research Council (grant number NE/L002531/1). For further information regarding the creation of this dataset please refer to doi:10.1038/srep33163.

Cetacean sightings in South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands waters, made by a team of four professional marine mammal observers during the British Antarctic Survey CCAMLR synoptic krill survey on the RRS Discovery (DY098), January and February 2019. The latitude and longitude of each sighting, the identified species, bearing and distance from the vessel, and estimated group size are provided. These data have been used by BAS to estimate (i) humpback whale and (ii) baleen whale abundance in South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands waters in 2019. Funding was provided by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, as part of the Overseas Territories Blue Belt programme, as well as the South Georgia Heritage Trust, Friends of South Georgia Island and Darwin PLUS award DPLUS057.

Platform Transmitting Terminal (PTT) tags were used to track Gentoo penguins from Maiviken and Ocean Harbour, South Georgia, from June to September 2018. PTT tags were attached to the lower back feathers with tape and glue. PTT tags use the ARGOS satellite system to collect geospatial data. Tags were deployed to provide information on the protection afforded to Gentoo penguins by the 12NM no take zone (part of the South Georgia and South Sandwich Island MPA that is closed to fishing), and the krill fishing grounds.