This week I'm a stowaway with Craig Smith who teaches at University of Hawaii in Manoa and a grad student from Duke, David Honig. Their research is part of the LARISSA Project (LARsen Ice Shelf System of Antarctica). LARISSA is an integrated, multi-disciplinary research project focusing on the changing ecosystem in the Antarctic Peninsula region. The collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf was a major event and cause for concern. Changes in the ecosystem have been observed in the waters down here. Craig and David are doing some research on invertebrates - each in a different way. These coastal waters has shown a redistribution of energy flow between chemoautotrophic and photosynthetic production (more great words to look up).
This worm caused great excitement. It is called an Osedax. From what I understand it is a fairly newly discovered animal. This one is particularly long. It's the long red thing!
Today we worked on David's research.
David is carrying out some high tech equipment to sort the varying invertebrate species that he and Craig will collect off of the whale bones. What do you mean ice cube trays aren't high tech? The work perfectly for the little animals to rest in.
A year ago February they lowered a frame with whale bones attached to it. Whale bones are a great habitat and food source for lots of invertebrates. Just think about that for a minute. When a whale dies and sinks down to the bottom of the ocean, that's a lot of meat and bones for little invertebrates to feast on and live in. A palace! We hauled them up from the depths and there was much to be happy about. It was a bit tense at first as no one knew if retrieval of these bones was going to be successful.
We all attended a strategy/safety meeting before the hoist. There were a lot of factors to consider if this was going to be a success.
After hours of preparation and discussion how best to insure safety and success you can imagine how happy everyone was when the bones emerged from the deep. And very pungent or perhaps you prefer aromatic. Is your dictionary next to you? Not only did the bones and frame return intact, but they were full of inverts. Of particular interest were the spider looking creatures and some osedax worms. Very cool. Craig and David are in lab sorting everything out so tomorrow when we have a chance I'll get more info on what they found on the bones and what this means.
This is a way to filter the water to collect the phytoplankton so that they can have a sampling of what lives in this area. There was not a whole lot there as we are going into winter. There is a lot more in the Austral summer months.
The successful retrieval of the whale bones caused great excitement and curiosity. Don't worry, Craig didn't fall down. He is taking pictures of the inverts that are visible and crawling around on the bone.
Craig and David discuss strategy on the best way to collect and separate all the inverts off of the whale bones.
The whale bones had lots of these small, sea spiders. Don't worry, they are aquatic - you won't find them in your house. David is going to examine the isotopes in the spiders and in the bones and figure out if these little guys are feeding on the bones. You can determine food web structure by looking at all sorts of things, including isotopes.