Antarctic Krill Survey Near Livingston Island Reveals Dense and Stable Populations in Shallow Waters
05.08.2010 - Water & Oceans, Flora & Fauna, Antarctic
The results of the first multiyear survey of Antarctic krill show that the coastal waters near Livingston Island have a significantly higher krill biomass density than offshore waters. In their study, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, the team of researchers from Stony Brook University and the Southwest Fisheries Science Center also found that the coastal waters were less subjected to interannual variation than offshore waters.
In order to access the shallow coastal waters selected for their study, the team used small boats to measure the amount of krill near Livingston Island. The difficulty fo reaching these waters with research ships restricted previous population surveys of Antarctic krill to offshore sampling. Onboard their small boats, the team was able to conduct as many as six acoustic surveys from 2000 to 2007. Thanks to their new approach, the researchers had the possibility to examine the abundance and distribution of Antarctic krill in coastal waters (500 to 2 meters deep). After compiling their observations, the team compared them to offshore studies of krill in the western Scotia Sea conducted during the same year.
Their results suggest that while the area covered by the survey in the waters near Livingston Island is small in comparison with the Scotia Sea, the high and stable densities of krill found in shallow waters could have a more significant ecological impact than less dense offshore krill populations.
