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Bering Sea Benthic Studies

Aloha Emily and all the fantastic researchers on the Healy!

I am so interested in knowing where the ice is at right now. Has the Bering Sea ice started melting? What kinds of organisms are you finding in the water column? What changes have you observed from last year to this?

My classes are just beginning to learn about the transfer of energy from the sun through (mostly) ocean ecosystems. There are exceptions to organisms getting energy from the sun, and they mostly gloop about in the benthos. Can you introduce us to a chemosynthetic organism that plays an important role in the Bering Sea and how it does that?

Mahalo nui loa for all your hard work. We send you warm aloha from Hawaii!

Maggie Prevenas (et all her students)

Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:14

Emily S. Davenport

Aloha Maggie!! Glad you found us here on the web again- we miss you on the Healy! We are not in the ice just yet, although it's only the 2nd full day of our cruise. We are expected to be in the ice in the next day or so. The ice edge is the furthest south it's been since the year 2000, which was unexpected and exciting. I believe if you look at the previous PolarTrec journal there is some mention of the ice extent there. It is expected to get very cold once we head into the ice.
We haven't done much sampling yet of organisms, but one exciting thing going on this year is that some people on board are specifically studying krill- which are a large zooplankton that is an important food source to many organisms, including whales! They have to sample for these krill at night because they come up to the surface of the water column at that time to feed. Last night they pulled up a very large cooler full of them. They look a lot like teeny tiny shrimp, but you can see them without using a microscope.
I don't know off the top of my head an important chemosynthetic benthic organism in the Bering Sea, except of course all the bacteria that live in the mud! Those guys are a pretty important food source for benthic organisms, and also help to break down all that phytoplankton that falls to the benthos. In the deep sea there is a bunch of chemosythentic organisms that live around hydrothermal vents- they live off the sulfur (which is normally poisonous) that comes from these vents. It's a pretty interesting environment, and it supports a lot more life than one would think.
I hope I answered your questions- thanks for saying hello!!
Emily