URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Spring_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

“If the krill prove sensitive to CO 2 and

“We’re testing the krill’s sensitivity to changes in carbon dioxide and temperature,” says Seibel. “Our first year here was mostly spent figuring out how to do the experiments. It’s a very small temperature range we’re trying to control, and it’s very difficult to do.” This year, Seibel and his team, which includes URI graduate student Abigail Bockus and URI lab technician Tracy Shaw, have the system up and running. Some of the tanks are kept at a temperature and CO 2 level similar to the current Antarctic Ocean; a second set of tanks contain warmer water and current CO 2 levels; and a third set contain water that is both warmer and higher in CO 2 concentrations. “We’re exposing the krill to a level of CO 2 consistent with what climate models show will be found 85 years from now, in 2100,” says Seibel. Most animals in the Antarctic are very sensitive to temperatures, and if the krill also are, they will probably die if the water gets too warm. While a lot of animals are sensitive to changes in CO 2 , Seibel is not so sure krill react in the same manner. “If the krill prove sensitive to CO 2 and warm temperatures, then that doesn’t bode well for the health of these populations over the next hundred years or so,” he says. “The penguins and the whales might have to move somewhere else, or look for new sources of food.” A veteran of eight trips to Antarctica, Seibel spent about a month at Palmer Station for this project. For his next research trip, in May 2015, he plans to visit a much balmier part of the world: searching for Humboldt squid off Baja, Mexico, to document how changes in CO 2 , temperature and oxygen in those warm waters are affecting life in the sea.

warm temperatures...The penguins and the whales might have to move somewhere else, or look for new sources of food.”

- Brad Seibel

Before the work could start, Seibel and his research team faced an odyssey simply to reach the station. First, there is a 20-hour flight from Rhode Island to Punta Arenas, near the southern tip of Chile, then five days to cross the rough waters of the Drake Passage aboard the NOAA research vessel Laurence M. Gould. After dropping off the scientists, the ship turned back out to sea to fill its nets with krill for the next batch of experiments. Once collected, the krill are kept in tanks at the station.

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Spring | 2015 Page 13