Dear Chantelle:

Is it too early to address that question? They swim around, I guess, but do they eat in the winter? Do they go into shallower water? Deeper? Do they reproduce at this time of the year? Do a lot of them die?

Keep taking those stunning photos of the arctic sun, moon, ice and sky.

Sincerely yours, Michael Wing PolarTREC Teacher Finland 2009

Chantelle Rose

Yes...it is a bit too early to answer that question! That is the main scientific question for this entire expedition. We ARE finding copepods...and they appear to be active with nice lipid sacs (that's what allows them to overwinter). There are very low amounts of phyoplankton. We have seen some Psuedocalanus copepods with eggs - so some reproduction is occuring now. The scientists will be analyzing the data in coming months to see if they migrated to deeper water or went into a state of diapause.Thanks for the compliments on the pictures...it is beautiful!