Minutes of the Fourth SO GLOBEC Science Investigator Meeting
9-11 December 2002
The meeting
began with an explanation on the Raytheon travel reimbursement forms from Alice
Doyle. She said to return the completed
forms to her.
Hofmann
summarized the results of the meeting of the co-editors for the SO GLOBEC DSR
II volume that was held Monday evening after the close of the SO GLOBEC
meeting. She said that there was a
suggestion to publish a CD as part of DSR
II volume. This CD would include the
bathymetry data, appendices for papers in the volume, color figures, etc. Hofmann reminded everyone to obtain a
contribution number for manuscripts from the GLOBEC data management office when
the manuscript is accepted for publication. She also said that there will be an
overview article on SO GLOBEC, to be written by the co-editors, as part of the
volume. Part of this overview will be a listing
of breakthroughs and highlights from the SO GLOBEC program and she requested
that the various groups submit these from their research programs. Hofmann said
that the titles and abstracts of the manuscripts submitted for the special
topics volume will be posted on the SO GLOBEC website along with the status of
the manuscript. Authors are encouraged
to check the website and to contact other authors for copies of relevant
manuscripts.
Wiebe said that
the contribution number should be on all manuscripts coming from the
program. This helps with tracking
program results. He also said that the
CD is a stand-alone contribution.
Hofmann said that there will be an editorial review of the material on
the CD. Bill Fraser asked if the CD material
should be cited in the paper and told yes.
Wiebe said that color illustrations can go on the CD to avoid page charges
for color figures. Fraser said that this approach would allow documentation of
the attachment methods for penguins without having to include this in the
manuscript.
Bernie Lettau,
program manager from the NSF Office of Polar Programs, gave a discussion of
synthesis and modeling activities for SO GLOBEC. He said that synthesis is an activity that is
going to be supported and that this is a process that will be ongoing for a
reasonable amount of time. He said that the
issue is how to fund a synthesis activity.
He said that for now, a SO GLOBEC synthesis activity will likely be part
of the core program and that a formal announcement for synthesis studies will
not be issued. He said that issuing a
special program announcement is complex.
Lettau said that the proposals due on
Following
Lettau, Don Perovich presented results from the sea
ice studies done on the winter 2002 process cruise. He said that the interest is in snow as a
habitat and as a barrier. Snow and ice
varies spatially and evolves temporally, which requires a multi-pronged
approach for studying it. The techniques used in 2002 included snow pits, sea
ice cores, surveys, and ice camps.
In winter 2002,
the sea ice freeboard was negative only 20% of the time, as compared to 2001. Also in 2002 there was more snow, almost
twice as much sea ice and less flooding of the sea ice surface. Also, the optical properties of the sea ice
in 2002 show a strong biological signature.
Three sea ice buoys were deployed on the winter cruise to measure
barometric pressure, ice pressure, position, air, ice, and ocean temperature,
snow depth, and ice thickness. Two of
the three buoys are still transmitting. The trajectories followed by the ice
buoys show ellipses, which may be tidal or inertial motions. Perovich indicated
that the first analysis of the snow and ice studies is available on CD and that
the second version will be available in spring 2003. He said that the future plans are to do
physical modeling of the sea ice habitat, using Hydrolight
to do radiative transfer modeling and to calculate
the inherent optical properties of the sea ice.
Scott Gallager gave a presentation that essentially announced the
availability of data from the SIMRAD EK500 on the N.B. Palmer. He said that this instrument is a
three-frequency (38, 120, 200 kHz) echosounder. When
on station ship noise is minimal and these data can be useful. Historically,
the problem with this instrument is that there has not been a good calibration
of the acoustic backscatter signals. On
the winter cruise (NBP02-02) it was possible to do a type of calibration by
running the SIMRAD at the same time that BIOMAPER-II was acquiring data. Correlations between the two data sets
provide calibration for the SIMRAD data.
Gallager then showed a correlation of the
SIMRAD acoustic data with CMiPS data. The SIMRAD data show helical spirals, which
the CMiPS data indicate are the result of
turbulence. The acoustic backscattering
is the result of reflection from the turbulence structure of the water column.
Carin Ashjian gave an overview of
zooplankton distributions in the SO GLOBEC study region relation to water
masses and specific density surfaces.
The distribution data are obtained from the Video Plankton Recorder
mounted on BIOMAPER-II. The plankton
images are then captured from the video and identified. The Video Plankton Recorder provides size
distribution as well. Ashjian said that the copepod
abundances were greater in fall 2002 in the south. Copepod abundance however was high in the
northern part of the study region in May 2002, which was a change from the
conditions in April 2002, when the section was first occupied, which showed low
copepod abundance. The copepods may be migrating with a diel
periodicity. Larval krill abundance in
2002 was much less than in 2001. She
said that the larval krill that were present in 2001 appeared mainly in the pycnocline. Most of the
larval krill were seen in the 2001 fall cruise.
Ashjian said that algal mats much more
abundant in the northern part of the study region in fall 2002. The algal mats are basically dying diatom
cells and may be an effective mechanism to move organic material to seafloor.
Wiebe followed Ashjian with a presentation on plankton distribution as determined
by acoustic backscatter measured with BIOMAPER-II. This instrument has five frequencies, but the
presentation was focused on 120 and 200 kHz acoustic backscatter. These frequencies show backscattering from diatoms,
radiolarians, algal mats as well as zooplankton. Wiebe noted that the 1 MHz frequency showed a
large plankton bloom in the upper 100 m on the 2001 fall cruise. He said that this bloom was not seen on the
2001 fall cruise, but that Uli Bathmann
did see a diatom bloom off the middle of Adelaide Island during the German SO
GLOBE cruise which was prior to the U.S. SO GLOBEC 2001 fall cruise. Torres mentioned that this like a classic case
of marine snow as described by Alice Alldredge and
co-workers.
Maria Vernet next presented transparencies of phytoplankton distributions
from the 2001 and 2002 fall cruises. She
said that the chlorophyll concentrations in the two were similar. The winter 2002 distribution shows remnants
of the fall bloom, but at lower concentration. The winter 2002 chlorophyll
distribution shows more at the shelf break, but overall chlorophyll
concentrations in the winter were ten times lower than in the fall.
Gareth Lawson
gave an overview of the krill distributions as determined from the BIOMAPER-II
acoustic backscatter records from the survey cruises. The approach is to use acoustic
backscattering to determine krill abundance in conjunction with the
ground-truth samples obtained with the MOCNESS.
The results to date show that, during the April-May 2001 survey cruise
(NBP01-03), there was an along-shelf gradient in krill abundance, with more
acoustic scattering in the south. There
was also scattering in a deep layer and in
Langdon Quetin showed video of dive observations made during the
process cruise ice camps during the 2001 and 2002 winters. The video showed larval krill in association
with the under-ice surface. The video
also showed the divers. Quetin said that drift nets were deployed through the sea
ice to catch larval krill during the ice camps and that the catches were higher
at night. The larval krill seem to be
concentrated at surface. There seems to be
a decrease in krill length northward and the intermolt
periods measured on the winter cruises were similar to those from historical
data.
Gallager's second presentation concerned results from the
Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) under-ice surveys that were done during the
survey cruises. The ROV surveys provide a measure of the large-scale
distribution of larval krill and provide a means for relating krill furcilia distribution to under-ice topography. He showed video from the ROV surveys to
illustrate these points. The video from
the under-ice surveys will be digitized to obtain motion vectors for individual
krill larvae which will be used to quantify swimming behavior over time. The distribution of larval krill from the ROV
surveys suggests that the counter-clockwise gyre overlying the continental
shelf in the study area could explain the regions of high concentrations of
larval krill. Gallagher also noted that
large under-ice krill aggregations were associated with rough ice and deep
protrusions.
Following the presentation from
Gallagher, the meeting was adjourned for lunch.
Ashjian's second presentation focused on results from the
MOCNESS data collected during the 2001 survey cruises. She presented a comparative comparative analysis for four midshelf
regions, one offshelf region, and in
In the vertical
distributions of biomass, diel migration by the
zooplankton was not obvious. The
zooplankton biomass differed above and below the pycnocline
and the overall vertical zooplankton biomass and abundance were lower in winter
than in fall. Four taxa,
(small copepods, large copepods, krill, larval krill, appear to partition the
water column vertically.
Rodger Harvey
gave results from nutritional condition and krill diet studies that were done
during the fall 2002 process cruise.
These studies consisted of morphological measurements (eye diameter,
total length), demographic structure, feeding strategy, and nutritional status
of krill. An overall goal is to do a
comparison of Pacific and Antarctic krill populations. The results from SO GLOBEC indicate that
krill adults under the sea ice in winter in the study region do not show
significant shrinkage. The regressions
of krill eye diameter versus krill total length do not show differences between
the fall and winter cruises, which implies no
shrinking of krill under the ice. Lipofuscin (age pigments) studies are now underway to look
at krill age, winter nutrition, and diet.
However, final analysis of the lipofuscin data
will not be done until krill growth experiments, which are needed to provide a
calibration for the lipofuscin-age relationship, are
finished. The krill are being grown in
collaboration with Steve Nicol from the Australian
Antarctic Division.
Gallager next made his third presentation of the day in
which he described microzooplankton distributions and
krill furcilia feeding experiments. He said that the objective of these studies
was to understand the role of microplankton, which are 50-200 μm, as prey for
krill furcilia. Microzooplankton
samples were obtained from water collected in Niskin bottles
on the CTD casts. Samples taken and
preserved with Lugols and some were
DAPI-stained. These were used to
determine the fall and winter particle concentrations. Preliminary analyses of these data show that
the fall particle concentration is greater than that in the winter. Also, krill furcilia,
captured in net tows, were exposed to particulates to do shipboard feeding
experiments. The experiments were
designed to obtain a functional response curve for furcilia
feeding on small particles. The results
show that as the furcilia begins to feed, feeding
accelerates as particulate concentration increases. The rates derived from these experiments
apply to krill furcilia that are feeding under sea
ice. The experiments show that krill furcilia are not selective feeders. The feeding rate data combined with the
distributional data suggest that there are regions of the study area where
there is top-down control on particle concentration via feeding by the furcilia (i.e., an inverse relationship between krill and microzooplankton/particles).
Jose Torres
presented results of physiological measurements made for zooplankton during the
2002 SO GLOBEC process and survey cruises.
He began by showing historical data for Antarctic krill metabolism
versus mass. These data show a reduction in winter rate reduction in animals
from the
Kendra Daly next
made a presentation that focused on differences in krill between the 2001 and
2002 field studies. She said that krill
recruitment depends on: 1) high reproduction, 2) larval survival in summer, 3)
physical entrainment onto the shelf, 4) retention on the shelf, 5) condition
prior to overwintering, and the 6) role of sea ice in
relation to feeding and physiology of larval krill. She then discussed the sea ice conditions in the
study area for 2001 and 2002 and indicated that the overall sea ice extent in
the two years was similar but that the timing of the sea ice formation differed
between years, with 2002 being earlier.
She showed SeaWiFS images that indicated that
phytoplankton blooms occurred in the study area in 2001. In 2002 there did not appear to be much food
for krill underneath the sea ice. Sea
ice biota was present, but this did not seem to be a major food source for overwintering krill.
She noted the dominance of older krill stages at the shelf break in fall
2001, which were primarily near the surface.
No krill larvae were seen on the shelf during NBP02-02. There was a
decline in krill molting rate in 2002, with fall rate being 19 days and that in
winter was 40 days. She said that there
was high krill reproduction in 2001 and 2002 and that larval recruitment did
appear to occur between 2001 and 2002 with the larvae present in 2001 surviving
over the winter.
Meng Zhou
presented results from ADCP and MOCNESS observations that are being used to
investigate aggregation and migration behavior of euphausiids.
Also the Optical Plankton Counter and MOCNESS data are being used to consider
growth and mortality of mesozooplankton in the
austral winter. The Optical Plankton
Counter data show a 76% decrease in biomass, at a rate of 0.016 day-1,
between the austral fall and winter.
There is also an 11% biomass change from night to day. He said that extensive krill aggregations were
observed in
Glenn Flierl next gave results of modeling studies that are
designed to investigate why organisms aggregate and to examine the evolution of
aggregation behavior. He pointed out
that physical and biological processes can cause patchiness. The advantages of patches/aggregations are
enhanced reproduction, escape/confuse predators, predator saturation, and to
exploit a food location. The
disadvantages are competition for resources and vulnerability to
large/intelligent predators (e.g., whales).
He then presented simulation results from models that incorporated: 1) reproduction
and competition for resources, 2) intelligent predators (food supply is strongly
increased by prey patchiness), and physical processes of stirring and
mixing. These results show that
aggregation behavior can evolve as the dominant animal trait for certain
combinations of physical and biological conditions. One result is that weak stirring will not
prevent aggregations, nor evolution of that behavior.
Following the presentation by Flierl, the meeting was adjourned for the day.