Reporte

HOLM HANSEN, OSMUND; HELBLING, WALTER; VILLAFAÑE, VIRGINIA; DÍAZ, HUMBERTO; RAMOS, MARCEL; BONERT ANWANDTER, CHRISTIAN; BARÓN, PEDRO J.

1994-02-14/1994-03-15

29-44

Biológica

Recursos naturales renovables

The long-term objective of the U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) field research program is to describe the functional relationships between krill, their predators, and key environmental variables. The field program is based on two working hypotheses: (1) krill predators respond to changes in the availability of their food; and (2) the distribution of krill is affected by both physical and biological aspects of their habitat. In order to refine these hypotheses, a study area was designated in the vicinity of Elephant Island (Figure 1). A seasonal field camp was established at Seal Island, off the northwest coast of Elephant Island, where reproductive success and feeding ecology of breeding seals and penguins are monitored. A complementary series of shipboard observations were initiated to describe both within and between season variations in the distributions of nekton, zooplankton, phytoplankton, and water types in the study area. The Seal Island field camp is activated each season in early December and remains occupied through mid-March; shipboard research is conducted from early January through mid-March. In addition, research on the ecology of Adelie penguins is conducted at Palmer Station during each austral spring and summer.