After three weeks of non-stop work, we finally finished our science operations along the western Antarctic Peninsula! Yesterday was our final night of operations and it was bittersweet as we sealed the lids of our sample jars and packed them away. Thirty-one net tows later, we can finally take a breath, enjoy the view and appreciate everything that we’ve done. There have been many challenges during this cruise, from net malfunctions to close living quarters, but we’ve overcome them all. It’s not always easy for an all-women early career science team to pave a path down here in Antarctica, but I’m proud to say that we stood our ground and came out on the other side with some great science under our belts.
The beginning of our expedition was a bit rocky and the krill were hard to come by. We meticulously searched Wilhelmina Bay (a typical hotspot for krill) and didn’t see a single blip on the echosounder. Although we didn't see any on our expedition, fishing vessels were spotted in the region about a week before we got there. We fared better once we headed south, past Adelaide Island and into Marguerite Bay and its surrounding waters. In most of the places that we towed, the krill weren’t super abundant, but they were there. Luckily, we caught enough to run all of our experiments.
Once we headed north again, back through the Gerlache Strait and into Wilhelmina, Anvord and Paradise Bay, we saw THOUSANDS of krill. It was like night and day from when we were in this area three weeks ago. It was disheartening to see their abundances so low in the beginning, yet encouraging that they bounced back to higher levels not even a month after. Of course, this boded well for our science, but also left me thinking about the problem on a grander scale.
The northern region of the western Antarctic Peninsula is a critical area for the overwintering and spawning of Antarctic krill and serves as the primary hunting grounds for several top predators. Concomitantly, it is located in the only fishing subarea that consistently reaches the harvest limits that CCAMLR* has set for the krill fishery. But it doesn’t end there.
As climate change increases global temperatures, the ecosystem dynamics of this region are changing, making it a less favorable habitat for Antarctic krill to thrive. This, in addition to the pressures imposed by predators and the krill fishery, threatens the longevity of Antarctic krill in this region. More vulnerable age classes, such as larvae and juveniles, are at greater risk as they are often found in larger abundances where fishing vessels frequent, while also relying more heavily on plentiful resources from the environment to survive.
The fact is that Antarctic krill are the single most important species in Antarctica and without them the ecosystem would collapse. We must do everything we can to protect this keystone species. Science, like the research we just completed aboard the NBP**, is a necessary first step to figuring out the best ways in which to defend this species.
*CCAMLR is the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. It is an international governing body that is responsible for setting the fishing regulations in Antarctic waters.
**The NBP is the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel operated by Edison Chouest Offshore and chartered by the National Science Foundation for polar science operations.