2004-2005 USAP Field Season

Palmer Station LTER: Climate migration, ecological response and teleconnections in an ice-dominated environment

 

  Project Manager:

Dr. Hugh Ducklow
Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences
School of Marine Sciences
The College of William and Mary
Box 1346
Gloucester Point, VA 23062-1346
duck@vims.edu

http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/lter/lter.html  
 
 
 
List of 2004-2005 Palmer Station LTER projects
  
 
 
 

The Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project is focused on one major ecological issue: To what extent does the advance and retreat of sea ice each year physically determine spatial and temporal changes in the structure and function of the antarctic marine ecosystem?
  Evidence shows this dynamic variability of sea ice to have an important (perhaps determinant) impact on all levels of the food web, from total annual primary production to breeding success in top predators. For example, variability in sea ice may affect prey and predators directly by controlling access to open water or preferred habitats. That variability may affect prey and predators indirectly as changes in the sea ice cover affect other species that serve as food. Four hypotheses drive current Palmer LTER research:
 
  • The timing and magnitude of seasonal primary production,
  • The dynamics of the microbial loop and particle sedimentation,
  • Krill abundance, distribution and recruitment,
  • Survivorship and reproductive success of top predator
 

These factors probably differ for key species since the magnitude and timing of sea ice changes can have specific local impacts. What remains unclear are the implications for the whole antarctic ecosystem. As one of the basic examples, greater sea ice areal coverage promotes more available krill which enhances the survivorship and reproductive success of Adelie penguins.

 

General objectives of the Palmer LTER project are:

  • Document the interannual variability of annual sea ice and the corresponding physics, chemistry, optics, and primary production within the study area,
  • Document the life history parameters of secondary producers and top predators,
  • Quantify the processes that cause variation in physical forcing and the subsequent biological response among the representative trophic levels,
  • Construct models that will link ecosystem processes to environmental variables and which will also simulate spatial/temporal ecosystem relationships,
  • Employ those models to predict and validate ice/ecosystem dynamics.
  A key challenge for the Palmer LTER project is to characterize and understand the many cross-linkages that have developed in the antarctic ecosystem. Environmental phenomena vary over time and across areas, having both physical and biological consequences. These changes in turn can develop other loops and linkages that influence each other.

 

Principal Investigator
Institution
Event Number
Component
Hugh Ducklow College of William and Mary B-045-L/P Project Manager
William R. Fraser Polar Oceans Research Group B-013-L/P Seabird
Douglas G. Martinson Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory B-021-L Modeling
Robin Ross University of California Santa Barbara B-028-L/P Zooplankton
Raymond Smith University of California Santa Barbara B-032-L/P Bio-optical
Maria Vernet Scripps Institution of Oceanography B-016-L/P Phytoplankton ecology