Project: NSFGEO-NERC: Collaborative Research – P2P: Predators to Plankton — Biophysical Controls in Antarctic Polynyas

NSF Award Abstract:

NSFGEO-NERC Collaborative Research: P2P: Predators to Plankton – Biophysical controls in Antarctic polynyas

Part I: Non-technical description:
The Ross Sea, a globally important ecological hotspot, hosts 25% to 45% of the world populations of Adélie and Emperor penguins, South Polar skuas, Antarctic petrels, and Weddell seals. It is also one of the few marine protected areas within the Southern Ocean, designed to protect the workings of its ecosystem. To achieve conservation requires participation in an international research and monitoring program, and more importantly integration of what is known about penguin as predators and the biological oceanography of their habitat. The project will acquire data on these species’ role within the local food web through assessing of Adélie penguin feeding grounds and food choices, while multi-sensor ocean gliders autonomously quantify prey abundance and distribution as well as ocean properties, including phytoplankton, at the base of the food web. Additionally, satellite imagery will quantify sea ice and whales, known penguin competitors, within the penguins’ foraging area. Experienced and young researchers will be involved in this project, as will a public outreach program that reaches more than 200 school groups per field season, and with an excess of one million visits to a website on penguin ecology. Lessons about ecosystem change, and how it is measured, i.e. the STEM fields, will be emphasized. Results will be distributed to the world scientific and management communities.

Part II: Technical description:
This project, in collaboration with the United Kingdom (UK) National Environmental Research Council (NERC), assesses food web structure in the southwestern Ross Sea, a major portion of the recently established Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area that has been designed to protect the region’s food web structure, dynamics and function. The in-depth, integrated ecological information collected in this study will contribute to the management of this system. The southwestern Ross Sea, especially the marginal ice zone of the Ross Sea Polynya (RSP), supports global populations of iconic and indicator species: 25% of Emperor penguins, 30% of Adélie penguins, 50% of South Polar skuas, and 45% of Weddell seals. However, while individually well researched, the role of these members as predators has been poorly integrated into understanding of Ross Sea food web dynamics and biogeochemistry. Information from multi-sensor ocean gliders, high-resolution satellite imagery, diet analysis and biologging of penguins, when integrated, will facilitate understanding of the ‘preyscape’ within the intensively investigated biogeochemistry of the RSP. UK collaborators will provide state-of-the-art glider technology, glider programming, ballasting, and operation and expertise to evaluate the oceanographic conditions of the study area. Several young scientists will be involved, as well as an existing outreach program already developed that reaches annually more than 200 K-12 school groups and has more than one million website visits per month.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.