November 20, 2011 The Epic Catch

  As you may have heard by this point, one of the primary objectives of our work out here is to differentiate the acoustical properties of krill and salps. We’re doing this so that in the future people will be able to more accurately estimate their populations by comparing their acoustical signatures to backscatter in the water column.  For now, the only way to do this is to catch both krill and salps in our nets and perform experiments on them, which in our case entails titrating them to find their density relative to sea water.

Personally, I’m starting to think that this is a bad year for salps. Out of the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of krill that we have caught in our IKMT tows thus far, we have caught maybe 100 salps.
Last night we had high hopes for finding salps. Paola found that of the salps we’ve caught, most of them were in the upper levels of the water column and were caught in the wee hours of the morning, so we decided to do an extra tow while we transited to our next station.

When we pulled the net in we had the biggest catch of krill I’ve seen. SO MANY KRILL. The cod end was literally overflowing with them, and they were all compacted in together. My first thought when I saw it was that when we flipped it over it was going to look like the cranberry sauce that my dad eats at Thanksgiving that has retained the shape of the can after it’s been poured out.

 Unfortunately, no one had a camera on them at the time to record the epic catch, but this can give you an idea of an average tow for us. In this case, it’s primarily adult E. superba, probably around 2” long, but we often get nets full of juveniles only as long as my thumbnail. Bear in mind, I’ve been told I have very small nails.

We filled something like eight buckets and sorted through whatever made it out of the compacted cod end alive to separate some animals out for titrations. Aside from a few krill, we found some cool amphipods that I was able to take pictures of under the microscope.

 A neat amphipod that we found. From a distance the red ends of his legs look almost feathery

This guy was pretty big for an amphipod at maybe an inch long. In the microscope you can see how pretty this guy actually is. The same is true for most zooplankton. With the naked eye they just look like little bugs swimming around in the water, but when you look at them under a microscope you can see all of the intricate patterns and color variations that make them so visually interesting.

As far as salps go though, I believe we found two. I am beginning to think we’ll never get a respectable catch of those elusive gelatinous goo balls. Our next few stations are in more open water, so many aboard the ship (especially Paola) remain hopeful that they may prove to be the salp promised-land. Stay tuned!

Melissa M (a.k.a Little Melissa, a.k.a. Munchkin, a.k.a. Muffin)

19 November - Snackz on the LMG

[Ed: The project PI neither condones or condemns the alternative spellings for snacks presented here in...]

Yesterday we had another day of unfortunate weather.  The winds were sustained 35 – 40 knots with gusts up to 50 – too windy to do science! So, instead of writing about science, I will write about my second favorite thing about the LMG – snacks!

There are myriad of snacks available.  Chocolate Chip Cookies (see my blog post from earlier this trip) will remain a favorite, but I have needed to expand my snack variety in fear of becoming bored of CCCs. Luckily there are plenty of options.

Espresso Machine!

 We are all big fans of the espresso machine!  What better way to make it through a 12 hour shift than caffeine??  The chunk of chocolate next to the machine is especially useful when making my personal favorite, mochas

Cereal!

 There are many different types of cereal on board.  Trix, granola, frosted mini-wheats, multi-grain cheerios – and my personal favorite, Lucky Charms!!  I find the sugar to be a great addition to the caffeine.  Here are Chelsea and I with our daily dose of luck

Cake!  -  The galley has produced some wonderful cakes!

 This cake was for two crew members birthdays.  Those are kiwi slices on the outside!  The inside was chocolate cake! Yum! We also get cakes for no occasion in particular, one was vanilla cake with dulce de leche filling!  Nom nom!

Candy!

  It is the Chief Scientist’s job to keep us sugared up all day and Ann is doing a great job!  Here is a our “Cookie Jar” which currently is stocked with snickers, chocolate cookies, delicious butterscotch candies, and more.

Snack Wall!

The “snack wall” is located in the galley and is always well stocked with snacks!  There are Pringles (original and queso), hard candies, ramen, cookies, nuts, dried fruit, crackers,  and more!

Condiments

  Something I’ve noticed about ships is that there is always many different hot sauce options available.  The LMG is no different.  There are at least six different types of hot sauce on board.  My favorite is Moore’s Buffalo Sauce

Mid-Rats!

My shift runs from noon-midnight, which means I occasionally eat Mid-Rats, the meal that is from 23:30 to 00:30.  Mid-rats offers a variety of breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods, to accommodate people working irregular shifts.  I enjoy it immensely – who doesn’t like eggs and bacon before heading off to sleep?

I hope you all have enjoyed my snack tour of the LMG.  The weather has finally started to calm down; a high pressure system is passing through the area.  Time for science (and working off all of the snacks!).

-Katie

18 November – Small Boating In Antarctica

 Another creature that's interested in zooplankton distributions in Antarctica was this baleen whale that we saw during our small boat survey yesterday.

Part of my research here in Antarctica is applying acoustic techniques (as described very nicely by Peter in the  previous blog post) from a small research vessel (normally a 6 m long inflatable rubber boat). Some of you (particularly my mother) might question why one would do such a thing. Travel to Antarctica and then ride around in a tiny boat ?

But there are several reasons that the small boat survey platform is particularly useful down here. Occasionally, you may read in the news about a ship running aground in Antarctica (it happened last year with a tour ship not very far from where we are now). This often happens because the bathymetry (how deep the water is) in this area is not very well charted.  There have been very few systematic mapping surveys of Antarctic waters, so boats tend to be wary (with good reason) of 1) going to places they haven't been safely before and 2) going near the islands or other shallow areas.

In addition, a 250+ ft long research vessel is a fairly loud boat, particularly underwater. The smaller research vessel that I use has a lot of advantages in studying zooplankton populations here, particularly close to shore.  It has a very shallow draft (~ 1 m) so we can go very close to shore and work in very shallow water, it is very nimble, it is much quieter acoustically, and our echosounder is located about 1m below the surface so we can collect data in the near surface waters. Additionally, we can monitor krill predators that may be in the area and they are not (to our knowledge) avoiding our vessel.

So yesterday morning was the first calm day we've had on this trip, so we jumped on the opportunity to take the small boat out and conduct some survey work. It provided a nice opportunity to also use three different acoustic systems to study the same volume of water which can help us later on (after the cruise) in interpreting and comparing the data from the three acoustic systems with each other.

So myself and MTs Kelley and Krista went out for a ~ 3 hour cruise (somewhat reminiscent of Gilligan's Island, I know).  There was some good size swell coming through, but once you're in the small boat and away from the large boat, it was not that noticeable.

We had several islands in the distance that would disappear and reappear as we rode up and down the wave crests during our U-shaped survey trackline (we covered about 20 km in the 3 hours). About 20 minutes into the survey, Kelley who was driving the zodiac mentioned “hey, is that a whale's footprint there ?”.  A whale's footprint is a circular area of the ocean which is caused by the whale moving it's tail fluke either at the surface or just beneath the surface. Sure enough, there was one.

  The calm, circular area of smooth water is the “whale's footprint.” Which means there's probably a whale around here somewhere.

A couple of minutes later, we spotted a splashing at the surface and saw a bit of a fin poking out of the water.

This is one half of the whale's tail fin (or  fluke). Seeing this means the whale is on its side swimming close to or at the surface.

It was difficult to ID the whale as it was moving very quickly, popping up on one side of the boat, then a few minutes later on the other side. Occasionally you could see a white shape moving underwater near the boat which was the whale's belly (which was very white) as it swam belly-side up past our boat.

 It may be tough to see, but the white shape submerged is the belly of the whale as it swims “upside down” in front of our research vessel.

We finally got some good photos of the whale and could estimate that it was about 20 ft in length (about the same size as our boat!) and from it's coloring, I'm pretty confident that it was a Minke whale. (the other possibility is the dwarf minke whale, but the pectoral fin coloring indicates it's a Minke.

 At one point, the whale surfaced along our starboard side and swam along with us for a few seconds

In addition to seeing the minke whale, we also saw a few small groups of chinstrap penguins (no photos unfortunately) during our survey. I was somewhat surprised that we didn't see more animals that feed on krill as there was a lot of krill in the water according to our echosounders. The Minke whale may have been feeding as there was krill close to the surface (about 10 m deep) or it may have just been curious about the weird looking “whale” that was driving around next to it. It was a great day to be in the small boat and we were able to test out and use our equipment which worked well. Now we just need to have another good weather day to get back out there.

Joe
(note: that day is not likely to be anytime soon as once we got back on the LM Gould yesterday, the winds have been steady at 30-40 kts).

18 November – Wiebe and Warren together again...

One of the best things about this cruise (from my perspective) is that one of the participants in the other project is Dr. Peter Wiebe from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Peter also happens to be one of my doctoral advisors from graduate school, where we spent a lot of time at sea in the Gulf of Maine using acoustics and nets to study zooplankton populations there. I haven't been to sea with Peter for about a decade, so it's been a very pleasant experience as Peter likes doing science, probably almost more than anything else. And his enthusiasm is difficult to avoid catching.

He wrote a very nice blog post (with some very minor edits from me) on Ann Bucklin's cruise blog (http://antarcticsalpgenomics.blogspot.com/ ) which I've copied below. Any of our readers should definitely check out their blog as their project is also investigating salps and other zooplankton, but using genetics as their research tool.

So here's what Peter wrote:

Antarctic Salp Genomics Blog
See: http://antarcticsalpgenomics.blogspot.com/
Posted by Peter Wiebe and Joe Warren - November 18, 2011

USING SOUND TO SEE INTO THE OCEAN

Land creatures - including us - are used to using our vision to detect the world around us. Ecologists walking in forests, meadows, grasslands, or deserts can immediately pick out the patterns of the life forms inhabiting the space and easily design sampling protocols to see the relationships to each other and their environment. Not so in the ocean environment. As we stand on the deck of a ship peering into the darkness of the sea surface, we can rarely visualize the animals and plants living just below the surface - much less those living in the depths of the ocean. Divers swimming in the shallow reaches of the ocean have limited visibility (only a few meters in coastal regions, up to 20-30 meters in very clear water), because seawater is a very poor medium for transmitting visible light.  Light is absorbed, scattered, and reflected more in seawater than in air by orders of magnitude.  This limitation affects even the remotely operated and autonomous vehicles with cameras and video systems that can roam the ocean depths, although this technology has given us images of the organisms living deep in the ocean and are leading to new insights about their spatial patterns and behavior on small spatial scales. So how is it possible to view the fascinating 3-dimensional ocean habitat and visualize the spatial arrangement and behaviors of marine organisms on larger spatial and temporal scales?

The transmission of sound at low and moderately high frequencies (1 Hz to 100 kHz) is much more efficient in the ocean than in air. Above 100 kHz, sound is more rapidly attenuated, largely because of absorption due to the salt (principally magnesium sulfate) in seawater.  Despite this limitation, high-frequency sound in the 38 kHz to 500 kHz range is proving exceedingly useful for studies of zooplankton (our target organisms), because it can be used to detect the presence of animals 10's to 100's of meters away from the transducer producing the sound.

 Figure 1. Echograms of 38 and 150 kHz acoustic data (Nov. 18, 2011). The vertical axis is depth (m); the horizontal axis is time. Intensity is shown by color (see color bar). The intense scattering shown on both echograms is probably krill patches. Image J.D. Warren

On this cruise, there are several acoustic systems being deployed to provide information about the distribution of zooplankton and larger organisms (such as fish) in the water column. The ship has a hull-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) with 38 and 150 kHz transducers, which is principally used for measuring current speed and direction with depth under the ship. This system depends on organisms in the water column to reflect sound and produce backscattering (i.e., the portion of the transmitted sound that is reflected off organisms back to the transducer receiver). This can be interpreted as current flow from Doppler shifts (i.e., shifts in the frequency of sound emitted by the transduers) in the returning echoes. Also recorded is the intensity of the sound returned as echoes off the organisms. As the ship steams along, the ADCP provides echograms of the backscattering intensity at two frequencies (Figure 1), providing a continuous indication of high and low concentrations of organisms below the surface.

 Figure 2. A) The BioSonics towfish equipped with 38 and 120 kHz transducers being launched from the LM Gould (15 November 2011).  B) The echogram display of the BioSonics frequencies. Photo and Image P.H. Wiebe

A second system is a dual frequency BioSonics echosounder with 38 and 120 kHz transducers mounted in a towed body (Figure 2). This system is being towed off the starboard quarter of the ship for two hours at the end of a station while heading for the next station when sea conditions are good.

 Figure 3. A) Joe Warren and MPC Jullie Jackson discuss the zodiac setup; note the orange transducer module on the end of the stainless steel square tubing next to the engine - it will be moved to a down position underwater during the survey. B) The Zodiac is launched. C)  Joe Warren climbs down into the zodiac. D) Kelley Watson, Krista Tyburski, and Joe Warren during a small-boat survey. Photos P.H. Wiebe

The third system is a Simrad echosounder that is battery powered and has transducers operating at 38 and 200 kHz.  It is being used from a Zodiac small boat (Figure 3) to conduct surveys of krill distribution over small spatial scales in areas of interest, where our large vessel is unable to go due to water depth. At our Stn #16, all three echosounders were operated for the first time during this cruise. Conditions were ideal, with low winds and seas - except for a long-period swell running through the survey area.

To help interpret the acoustics data, the small boat survey was conducted along the towing path of the MOCNESS, which provided depth-specific collections of animals and environmental measurements (especially temperature and salinity) in the water column at the station.  The combination of the MOCNESS and IKMT zooplankton samples and the acoustic data will provide a comprehensive picture of the vertical and horizontal distribution of zooplankton living in this Antarctic ecosystem and will allow evaluation of their status in the face of the rapid environmental changes now taking place here.

-- Peter H. Wiebe (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) and Joseph D. Warren (Stony Brook University)

17 November WHO’S THAT ZOOPLANKTER?

In an effort to increase audience participation with our blogs, today’s posting is a game!  We’ve told you a bit about two types of zooplankton that we are interested in studying out here:  krill and salps.  What you may not have realized is that our nets pull up a lot more animals than just the ones we want!  In between stations, we’ve been trying to photograph some of these various specimens from our net tows.

Today’s game:  Correctly identify each of the animals in the photos (to the lowest taxa possible.)  The person with the most correct answers will win a souvenir from Antarctica!

So, brush off those ID books sitting on your shelves and get Google Images up and running…you’ve got some zooplankton to ID!  Good luck!

P.S.  Remember that all photos were all taken within the last week, so keep in mind that these are all ANTARCTIC species.


You can submit your answers via email to ales.lab.sbu@gmail.com (just put Zooplankton ID in the subject line) or you can post them in the comments section below.


Please submit your guesses by noon (east coast time) on monday, Nov 21st. We'll announce the winner(s) before thanksgiving!

 Mystery zooplankton #1

 Mystery zooplankton #2

 Mystery zooplankton #3

 Mystery zooplankton #4

 Mystery zooplankton #5

 Mystery zooplankton #6

 Mystery zooplankton #7

 Mystery zooplankton #8

Mystery zooplankton #9 

Mystery zooplankton #10

November 16, 2011 Buh-buh-buh bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word

I’ve lost track of how many days it’s been since we started our watch schedules and I had to shift my sleep schedule a whole 12 hours to work on the midnight to noon shift. The days started blending together and dates started getting confused almost immediately upon first waking up at 11pm to start the day.  A lot seems to happen on the night shift though. Last night, for instance, we were swarmed by birds. We had a pretty good snow storm last night. By sunrise the decks were thoroughly covered in snow, and apparently birds like to sit in that snow because there were a couple dozen of them all hanging out on the back deck when I started my shift.

: A bunch of cape petrels, a couple prions, and a fulmar hanging out on the back deck.

The birds here aren’t really afraid of humans at all so you can walk right up to them and they won’t move much. They sort of just shuffle a bit to the side and squawk at you angrily. It was the highlight of my evening. Or day. Or morning. It’s hard to say at this point.

We even had birds come "indoors". He had flown into the aquarium room where Big Melissa, Paola, and Ann were attempting to sort through zooplankton that we had just caught, and gotten himself wedged in between a big storage type container and the wall. Well I couldn’t have that, so I encouraged him to leave the aquarium room, and he eventually returned back on the deck.

 A prion in the aquarium room. He flew to the back of that black container there and got stuck between it and the wall before returning to the outdoors.

As the sun started to rise most of the birds flew away, but several were left up on the O1 deck, just chillin’ outside by the door. They eventually flew off though so I guess they were just taking a rest on the ship during the night.

Prions chilling by the door.

The O1 deck, covered in snow. The primary site of bird sitting.

Melissa M (a.k.a. Little Melissa, a.k.a Munchkin, a.k.a. Muffin)

15 November - Haikus

Everything continues to go well down here – even the weather has begun to clear up!  We did a station last night and another this morning – all in winds less than 25 knots which is quite a change from a few days ago.   We have been discussing haikus during meals and I decided a fun blog entry would be to collect a big batch of haikus from the ship’s company and share them with you!  As you will read, there are a few common themes – rough weather, the lack of salps (although since these were written we have found a few!!), and guitar hero, our favorite way to pass the time.

Enjoy!


Crabeater Seals glare
As the LMG plows through
Slumber disturbed
-Chelsea Stanley

The waves are crashing
I am rolling in my bed
Please, please let me sleep!
- Patty O'Malley

Station number twelve
Will you bring in the jackpot?
Getting tossed around
--Anonymous

Echoes
 A loud ping goes out.
 A whisper echo returns.
 From deep-sea creatures.
-Peter Wiebe

Seabirds all around
Aggregating near the ship
Painted petrels fly
- Patty O'Malley

On the LMG
Melissas are a plenty
Who wants a name change?
-Melissa Paddock

Chocolate chip cookies
Are my favorite food at sea
Nom nom nom nom nom
-Katie

The seas are rough out
I saw my breakfast again
Oatmeal looks the same
-Anonymous

Standby for Weather
Antarctic Salps Hide From Us
Maybe Tomorrow
-Krista Tyburksi

Are salps elusive?
We will prove John Evans wrong
And catch these buggers.
-Ann Bucklin

Titration Drip Drip
In A Freezer Van On Deck
Cold Toes But Data
-Anonymous

One big leopard seal
Lies motionless on ice raft
One big yawn - he's tired
- Patty O'Malley

I K M T Away
Sweeping Through Chilly Water
Brings Gifts Of The Sea
-Anonymous

The krill are dancing
Bright pink and red with green guts
Unaware their fate
- Patty O'Malley

Crew Roster: Meliss
a Melissa Melissa
Three Is Too Many
-Anonymous

Where art though my salp ?
Rival of E. superba
Muscled band of goo.
-Anonymous

Elusive Animals
 MOCNESS after salps.
 But none caught in tows so far.
 Salps wherein art thou?
-Peter Wiebe

I slurped a small salp
Oh! It made me dance about
Salty sea creature
-Anonymous

Snowflakes falling
Blanketing Palmer Station
The Leopard Seal Yawns
-Chelsea Stanley

Slippery wet decks
Good thing I wear my hardhat
True Antarctica!
-Anonymous

Slippery, Secret
Salps.  Oh where are you hiding out?
Please.  Come out.  Come out.
-Kelley Watson

 No one can find me
 An MST in hiding
 I need Ethanol
-Melissa Paddock

Moisturizing cream
O how I wish I had some
Moisturizing cream
-Anonymous

Antarctic Spring
 Winds roar and seas build.
 Petrels soaring effortlessly.
 Skim mountainous waves.
-Peter Wiebe

A cruise of Science
Sitting in the swelling seas
Rock Band anyone?
-Melissa Paddock

Sitting At Station Twelve
Gould Teeters As Waves Pass By
Waiting For Science
-Anonymous

MOCNESS is a beast
Swallowing planktonic prey
Euphausiids beware!
-Chelsea Stanley

Wacky instruments
on LMG make ETs
burn many fuses
-Kris Merril

It's blowing 60
And those waves ain't so pretty
Silly Drake station
-Anonymous

Dear Guitar Hero
Helping ease the weather woes
We love to whammy
-Chelsea Stanley


Hope you liked them!  Have a wonderful day!

-Katie