Project Title

PAL-LTER: Ecological response to "Press-Pulse" disturbances along a rapidly changing West Antarctic Peninsula

Summary

Event Number:
C-045-P
NSF / OPP Award 2224611

Program Director:
Dr. William Ambrose

ASC POC/Implementer:
Ryan Steiner / Jamee Johnson

Principal Investigator(s)

Dr. Benjamin Van Mooy
bvanmooy@whoi.edu
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry
Woods Hole, Massachusetts

Project Web Site:
https://pallter.marine.rutgers.edu/

Location

Supporting Stations: Palmer Station
Research Locations: Palmer Station

Description

Seasonal sea ice-influenced marine ecosystems at both poles are characterized by high productivity concentrated in space and time by local, regional, and remote physical forcing. These polar ecosystems are among the most rapidly changing on Earth. The Palmer Long Time Ecological Research (PAL-LTER) seeks to build on three decades of long-term research along the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula to gain new mechanistic and predictive understanding of ecosystem changes in response to disturbances spanning long-term, subdecadal, and higher-frequency “pulses” driven by a range of processes, including long-term climate warming, natural climate variability and storms. These disturbances alter food-web composition and ecological interactions across temporal and spatial scales that are not well understood. Researchers will contribute fundamental understanding of how population dynamics and biogeochemical processes are responding within a polar marine ecosystem undergoing profound change.

Field Season Overview

Microorganisms < 1 µm long form an important ecosystem component at the base of ocean foodwebs and catalyze critical biogeochemical transformations in the carbon, nitrogen and other elemental cycles. Two participants will deploy to Palmer Station to document the long-term trends and variability of bulk bacterial and Archaeal biomass and production rates in space and time. They will conduct twice weekly water sampling at Stations B and E, twice weekly bioacoustic transects, and deploy moored sediment traps to capture carbon transport in the water column. The goal of the biogeochemistry component is to understand how climate change and ecosystem responses impact key biogeochemical properties and processes: dissolved inorganic carbon and nutrients, net community production and particle export. The Southern Ocean is an important sink for atmospheric CO2. The studies of the metabolically active gases are aimed at clarifying the linkages among biological and physical processes affecting CO2 storage.

Deploying Team Members