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We continue north for the SOTS mooring. This CSIRO mooring has lost its
top float allowing the package containing the samples and data to sink
to the bottom. We arrive around midnight and will start searching for
it. If we can find it we will wait till daylight to attempt a retrieval.
Lots of report writing, labelling of samples and packing up of very
complicated and expensive research equipment continues, as does the
daily upkeep of 30,000 Antarctic and 100 Crystal krill that we have in
the tanks for live transfer to the AAD krill program aquarium.
In all we conducted 20 successful target trawls on krill.
We have set up 13 Instantaneous Growth Rate (IGR) experiments which
included 3744 krill, all incubated in individual jars for four days
each, which yielded 648 growth measurements as animals moulted their
exoskeletons.
We snap froze 1,411 krill in liquid nitrogen from twenty stations for
later biochemical analysis.
We have collected fertilised eggs from 22 spawns, recorded development
stage and set up 10 experiments assessing the impact of ocean
acidification on krill egg development.
To achieve this we have counted over 23,000 krill eggs, each 0.6 mm in
diameter.
We are rearing a growing number of krill nauplius larvae for return to
the Kingston aquarium, currently 2000 individuals.
We have live samples of various zooplankton including pteropods and
copepods. We have run 6 continuous plankton recorder tows and collected
other krill samples samples for the analysis of aging, molecular sex
determination, lipid profiling and other analyses.
However, our most obvious achievement is the introduction of what will
surely be a global fashion phenomenon, 24 hour use of fluffy puff pants,
essential for cold room work, but also very stylish.
Cheers
Andy, Mike and the Natural Born Krillers...
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.