Camera technologies developed by the Australian Antarctic Division are to be put into action by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO) research vessel Investigator.
Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley said CSIRO’s Investigator departed Hobart last week (28 January) on a two-month expedition to study Antarctic krill, one of the most abundant animals on the planet and key to protecting the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
“Australian Antarctic Program scientists will measure krill in ways never attempted before,” Ms Ley said.
“The voyage is critical to the sustainable management of a species, which is a cornerstone of the Antarctic food chain supporting penguins, seals and whales and a host of other species,” she said.
“The camera and other technologies developed to carry out the research are the sort of great Australian innovations that we need to improve our understanding of krill and our accuracy in estimating how many there are, and the ways we can support ocean health.”
Ms Ley said krill formed vast swarms that could be hundreds of metres deep and extend over areas of about 100 square kilometres.
“For the first time, scientists will deploy a novel ‘swarm study system’ – a series of cameras mounted to a floating frame,” the Minister said.
“The system will be dropped into the middle of a krill swarm, to capture the krill schooling around it in 3D,” she said.
Ms Ley said the research would provide information about how krill orient themselves in a swarm, which would improve how the ship’s echosounders estimated how much krill there were.
She said scientists would also look for krill on the sea floor, up to 1,500 metres below sea level, by anchoring three deep sea moorings.
“The results will provide the first insights into how krill use the sea floor habitat when the ocean is blanketed by sea ice in winter, and how important the habitat is to krill across the year.”
Ms Ley said the research would assist the international body for Southern Ocean conservation, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), to update the sustainable catch limit for a re-emerging krill fishery in East Antarctica.
