{"dp_type": "Project", "free_text": "Photographs"}
[{"awards": "2146068 Kienle, Sarah", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Mon, 12 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx) is an enigmatic apex predator in the rapidly changing Southern Ocean. As top predators, leopard seals play a disproportionately large role in ecosystem functioning and act as sentinel species that can track habitat changes. How leopard seals respond to a warming environment depends on their adaptive capacity, that is a species\u2019 ability to cope with environmental change. However, leopard seals are one of the least studied apex predators on Earth, hindering our ability to predict how the species is responding to polar environmental changes. Investigating the adaptability of Antarctic biota in a changing system aligns with NSF\u2019s Strategic Vision for Investments in Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research. This research, which is tightly integrated with educational and outreach activities, will increase diversity in STEM and Antarctic science by recruiting students from historically underrepresented groups in STEM and providing training, mentoring, and educational opportunities at an emerging Hispanic Serving Institution and a Historically Black Colleges and Universities campus. This project will improve STEM education and science literacy via museum collaborations, creation of informational videos and original artwork depicting the research. The proposal supports data and sample reuse in polar research and long-term reuse of scientific data, thereby maximizing NSF\u2019s investment in previous field research and reducing operational costs. The researchers will investigate leopard seals adaptive capacity to the warming Southern Ocean by quantifying their ability to move (dispersal ability), adapt (genetic diversity), and change (plasticity). Aim 1 of the research will determine leopard seals\u2019 dispersal ability by assessing their distribution and movement patterns. Aim 2 will quantify genetic diversity by analyzing genetic variability and population structure and Aim 3 will examine phenotypic plasticity by evaluating changes in their ecological niche and physiological responses. The international, multidisciplinary team will analyze existing data (e.g., photographs, census data, life history data, tissue samples, body morphometrics) collected from leopard seals across the Southern Ocean over the last decade. Additionally, land- and ship-based field efforts will generate comparable data from unsampled regions in the Southern Ocean. The research project will analyze these historical and contemporary datasets to evaluate the adaptive capacity of leopard seals against the rapidly warming Southern Ocean. This research is significant because changes in the distribution, genetic diversity, and ecophysiology of leopard seals can dramatically restructure polar and subpolar communities. Further, the research will expand understanding of leopard seals\u2019 ecological role, likely characterizing the species as flexible polar and subpolar predators throughout the Southern Hemisphere. The findings of this research will be relevant for use in ecosystem-based management decisions\u2014including the design of Marine Protected Areas\u2014 across three continents. This study will highlight intrinsic traits that determine species\u2019 adaptive capacity, as well as showcase the dynamic links between polar and subpolar ecosystems. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "FIELD SURVEYS; SPECIES/POPULATION INTERACTIONS; MARINE ECOSYSTEMS; MAMMALS; Southern Ocean", "locations": "Southern Ocean", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Kienle, Sarah; Trumble, Stephen J; Bonin, Carolina", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Move, Adapt, or Change: Examining the Adaptive Capacity of a Southern Ocean Apex Predator, the Leopard Seal", "uid": "p0010375", "west": null}, {"awards": "2147553 Rotella, Jay; 2147554 Chen, Nancy; 1640481 Rotella, Jay", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((162 -74.95,162.8 -74.95,163.6 -74.95,164.4 -74.95,165.2 -74.95,166 -74.95,166.8 -74.95,167.6 -74.95,168.4 -74.95,169.2 -74.95,170 -74.95,170 -75.295,170 -75.64,170 -75.985,170 -76.33,170 -76.67500000000001,170 -77.02000000000001,170 -77.36500000000001,170 -77.71000000000001,170 -78.055,170 -78.4,169.2 -78.4,168.4 -78.4,167.6 -78.4,166.8 -78.4,166 -78.4,165.2 -78.4,164.4 -78.4,163.6 -78.4,162.8 -78.4,162 -78.4,162 -78.055,162 -77.71000000000001,162 -77.36500000000001,162 -77.02000000000001,162 -76.67500000000001,162 -76.33,162 -75.985,162 -75.64,162 -75.295,162 -74.95))", "dataset_titles": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2023 Antarctic field season", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601837", "doi": "10.15784/601837", "keywords": "AMD; Amd/Us; Antarctica; Cryosphere; McMurdo Sound; Population Dynamics; USA/NSF; USAP-DC; Weddell Seal", "people": "Rotella, Jay", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2023 Antarctic field season", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601837"}], "date_created": "Sun, 07 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Part 1: Non-technical description This is a continuation of a long-term population dynamics study (1978-present) using an intensive mark-recapture tagging of Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. Past work has become a global model for population studies of large animals. Results have documented strong annual variation in reproduction, abundance, and population composition. This program will add components to evaluate the demographic role of immigrant mothers, evaluate possible drivers of annual variation in overall population dynamics, assess genetic differences between immigrant and locally born mothers, and document patterns of gene flow among seal colonies in the Ross Sea region. These new aspects will focus on understanding of population structure, function, and genetics and provide key information for predicting how the seal population will respond to environmental change. The addition of genetic approaches will advance available data for multiple groups in multiple countries working on Weddell Seals. This work includes an early career scientists training program for faculty university graduate and undergraduate students and well as a defined program for data sharing. The research is paired with active education and outreach programs, social media, websites, educational resources, videos and high-profile public lecture activities. The informal science education program will expand on the project\u2019s successful efforts at producing and delivering short-form videos that have been viewed over 1.6 million times to date. In addition, the education program will add new topics such as learning about seals using genomics and how seals respond to a changing world to a multimedia-enhanced electronic book about the project\u2019s long-term research on Weddell seals, which will be freely available to the public early in the project. Part 2: Technical description Reliable predictions are needed for how populations of wild species, especially those at high latitudes, will respond to future environmental conditions. This study will use a strategic extension of the long-term demographic research program that has been conducted annually on the Erebus Bay population of Weddell seals since 1978 to help meet that need. Recent analyses of the study population indicate strong annual variation in reproduction, abundance, and population composition. The number of new immigrant mothers that join the population each year has recently grown such that most new mothers are now immigrants. Despite the growing number of immigrants, the demographic importance and geographic origins of immigrants are unknown. The research will (1) add new information on drivers of annual variation in immigrant numbers, (2) compare and combine information on the vital rates and demographic role of immigrant females and their offspring with that of locally born females, and (3) add genomic analyses that will quantify levels of genetic variation in and gene flow among the study population and other populations in the Ross Sea. The project will continue the long-term monitoring of the population at Erebus Bay and characterize population dynamics and the role of immigration using a combination of mark-recapture analyses, stochastic population modeling, and genomic analyses. The study will continue to provide detailed data on individual seals to other science teams, educate and mentor individuals in the next generation of ecologists, introduce two early-career, female scientists to Antarctic research, and add genomics approaches to the long-term population study of Erebus Bay Weddell seals. The research will be complemented with a robust program of training and an informal science education program. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": 170.0, "geometry": "POINT(166 -76.67500000000001)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "SPECIES/POPULATION INTERACTIONS; McMurdo Sound", "locations": "McMurdo Sound", "north": -74.95, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Rotella, Jay; Chen, Nancy", "platforms": null, "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -78.4, "title": "Collaborative Research: The Drivers and Role of Immigration in the Dynamics of the Largest Population of Weddell Seals in Antarctica under Changing Conditions", "uid": "p0010361", "west": 162.0}, {"awards": "1640481 Rotella, Jay", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((162 -75,162.8 -75,163.6 -75,164.4 -75,165.2 -75,166 -75,166.8 -75,167.6 -75,168.4 -75,169.2 -75,170 -75,170 -75.38,170 -75.76,170 -76.14,170 -76.52,170 -76.9,170 -77.28,170 -77.66,170 -78.03999999999999,170 -78.42,170 -78.8,169.2 -78.8,168.4 -78.8,167.6 -78.8,166.8 -78.8,166 -78.8,165.2 -78.8,164.4 -78.8,163.6 -78.8,162.8 -78.8,162 -78.8,162 -78.42,162 -78.03999999999999,162 -77.66,162 -77.28,162 -76.9,162 -76.52,162 -76.14,162 -75.76,162 -75.38,162 -75))", "dataset_titles": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2017 Antarctic field season; Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2023 Antarctic field season", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601837", "doi": "10.15784/601837", "keywords": "AMD; Amd/Us; Antarctica; Cryosphere; McMurdo Sound; Population Dynamics; USA/NSF; USAP-DC; Weddell Seal", "people": "Rotella, Jay", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2023 Antarctic field season", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601837"}, {"dataset_uid": "200300", "doi": " https://doi.org/10.15784/601125 ", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2017 Antarctic field season", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601125"}], "date_created": "Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The consequences of variation in maternal effects on the ability of offspring to survive, reproduce, and contribute to future generations has rarely been evaluated in polar marine mammals. This is due to the challenges of having adequate data on the survival and reproductive outcomes for numerous offspring born in diverse environmental conditions to mothers with known and diverse sets of traits. This research project will evaluate the survival and reproductive consequences of early-life environmental conditions and variation in offspring traits that are related to maternal attributes (e.g. birth date, birth mass, weaning mass, and swimming behavior) in a population of individually marked Weddell seals in the Ross Sea. Results will allow an evaluation of the importance of different types of individuals to the Weddell Seal\u0027s population sustenance and better assessments of factors contributing to the population dynamics in the past and into the future. The project allows for documentation of specific individual seal\u0027s unique histories and provisioning of such information to the broader science community that seeks to study these seals, educating graduate and undergraduate ecology students, producing science-outreach videos, and developing a multi-media iBook regarding the project\u0027s science activities, goals and outcomes. The research has the broad objective of evaluating the importance of diverse sources of variation in pup characteristics to survival and reproduction. The study will (1) record birth dates, body mass metrics, and time spent in the water for multiple cohorts of pups (born to known-age mothers) in years with different environmental conditions; (2) mark all pups born in the greater Erebus Bay study area and conduct repeated surveys to monitor fates of these pups through the age of first reproduction; and (3) use analyses specifically designed for data on animals that are individually marked and resighted each year to evaluate hypotheses about how variation in birth dates, pup mass, time spent in the water by pups, and environmental conditions relate to variation in early-life survival and recruitment for those pups. The research will also allow the documentation of the population status that will contribute to the unique long-term database for the local population that dates back to 1978.", "east": 170.0, "geometry": "POINT(166 -76.9)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "AMD; ANIMAL ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR; Amd/Us; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Ross Sea; USA/NSF; USAP-DC", "locations": "Ross Sea", "north": -75.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Rotella, Jay; Garrott, Robert", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -78.8, "title": "The consequences of maternal effects and environmental conditions on offspring success in an Antarctic predator", "uid": "p0010198", "west": 162.0}, {"awards": "1753101 Bernard, Kim", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-65 -64,-64.7 -64,-64.4 -64,-64.1 -64,-63.8 -64,-63.5 -64,-63.2 -64,-62.9 -64,-62.6 -64,-62.3 -64,-62 -64,-62 -64.1,-62 -64.2,-62 -64.3,-62 -64.4,-62 -64.5,-62 -64.6,-62 -64.7,-62 -64.8,-62 -64.9,-62 -65,-62.3 -65,-62.6 -65,-62.9 -65,-63.2 -65,-63.5 -65,-63.8 -65,-64.1 -65,-64.4 -65,-64.7 -65,-65 -65,-65 -64.9,-65 -64.8,-65 -64.7,-65 -64.6,-65 -64.5,-65 -64.4,-65 -64.3,-65 -64.2,-65 -64.1,-65 -64))", "dataset_titles": "2019 Krill Carbon Content; 2019 Krill Morphometrics; CAREER: \"The Omnivores Dilemma\": The Effect of Autumn Diet on Winter Physiology and Condition of Juvenile Antarctic Krill; Expedition of NBP2205; Feeding Experiment - Krill Lipid Classes; Gerlache Strait Krill Demographics", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601708", "doi": "10.15784/601708", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Krill; Palmer Station; Winter", "people": "Bernard, Kim", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "2019 Krill Morphometrics", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601708"}, {"dataset_uid": "601707", "doi": "10.15784/601707", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Krill; Palmer Station; Winter", "people": "Bernard, Kim", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Feeding Experiment - Krill Lipid Classes", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601707"}, {"dataset_uid": "601706", "doi": "10.15784/601706", "keywords": "Abundance; Antarctica; Antarctic Krill", "people": "Bernard, Kim", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Gerlache Strait Krill Demographics", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601706"}, {"dataset_uid": "200368", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "BCO-DMO", "science_program": null, "title": "CAREER: \"The Omnivores Dilemma\": The Effect of Autumn Diet on Winter Physiology and Condition of Juvenile Antarctic Krill", "url": "https://www.bco-dmo.org/project/824760"}, {"dataset_uid": "601709", "doi": "10.15784/601709", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Krill; Palmer Station; Winter", "people": "Bernard, Kim", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "2019 Krill Carbon Content", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601709"}, {"dataset_uid": "200369", "doi": "10.7284/909918", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition of NBP2205", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP2205"}], "date_created": "Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Antarctic krill are essential in the Southern Ocean as they support vast numbers of marine mammals, seabirds and fishes, some of which feed almost exclusively on krill. Antarctic krill also constitute a target species for industrial fisheries in the Southern Ocean. The success of Antarctic krill populations is largely determined by the ability of their young to survive the long, dark winter, where food is extremely scarce. To survive the long-dark winter, young Antarctic krill must have a high-quality diet in autumn. However, warming in certain parts of Antarctica is changing the dynamics and quality of the polar food web, resulting in a shift in the type of food available to young krill in autumn. It is not yet clear how these dynamic changes are affecting the ability of krill to survive the winter. This project aims to fill an important gap in current knowledge on an understudied stage of the Antarctic krill life cycle, the 1-year old juveniles. The results derived from this work will contribute to the development of improved bioenergetic, population and ecosystem models, and will advance current scientific understanding of this critical Antarctic species. This CAREER project\u0027s core education and outreach objectives seek to enhance education and increase diversity within STEM fields. An undergraduate course will be developed that will integrate undergraduate research and writing in way that promotes authentic scientific inquiry and analysis of original research data by the students, and that enhances their communication skills. A graduate course will be developed that will promote students\u0027 skills in communicating their own research to a non-scientific audience. Graduate students will be supported through the proposed study and will gain valuable research experience. Traditionally underserved undergraduate students will be recruited to conduct independent research under the umbrella of the larger project. Throughout each field season, the research team will maintain a weekly blog that will include short videos, photographs and text highlighting the research, as well as their experiences living and working in Antarctica. The aim of the blog will be to engage the public and increase awareness and understanding of Antarctic ecosystems and the impact of warming, and of the scientific process of research and discovery. In this 5-year CAREER project, the investigator will use a combination of empirical and theoretical techniques to assess the effects of diet on 1-year old krill in autumn-winter. The research is centered on four hypotheses: (H1) autumn diet affects 1-year old krill physiology and condition at the onset of winter; (H2) autumn diet has an effect on winter physiology and condition of 1-year old krill under variable winter food conditions; (H3) the rate of change in physiology and condition of 1-year old krill from autumn to winter is dependent on autumn diet; and (H4) the winter energy budget of 1-year old krill will vary between years and will be dependent on autumn diet. Long-term feeding experiments and in situ sampling will be used to measure changes in the physiology and condition of krill in relation to their diet and feeding environment. Empirically-derived data will be used to develop theoretical models of growth rates and energy budgets to determine how diet will influence the overwinter survival of 1-year old krill. The research will be integrated with an education and outreach plan to (1) develop engaging undergraduate and graduate courses, (2) train and develop young scientists for careers in polar research, and (3) engage the public and increase their awareness and understanding. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": -62.0, "geometry": "POINT(-63.5 -64.5)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Antarctic Peninsula; AMD; FIELD INVESTIGATION; ANIMALS/INVERTEBRATES; PELAGIC; Anvers Island; Amd/Us; USAP-DC; NSF/USA", "locations": "Antarctic Peninsula; Anvers Island", "north": -64.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Bernard, Kim", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "BCO-DMO; R2R; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -65.0, "title": "CAREER: \"The Omnivore\u0027s Dilemma\": The Effect of Autumn Diet on Winter Physiology and Condition of Juvenile Antarctic Krill", "uid": "p0010124", "west": -65.0}, {"awards": "0231006 DeVries, Arthur; 1142158 Cheng, Chi-Hing", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((163 -76.5,163.5 -76.5,164 -76.5,164.5 -76.5,165 -76.5,165.5 -76.5,166 -76.5,166.5 -76.5,167 -76.5,167.5 -76.5,168 -76.5,168 -76.63,168 -76.76,168 -76.89,168 -77.02,168 -77.15,168 -77.28,168 -77.41,168 -77.54,168 -77.67,168 -77.8,167.5 -77.8,167 -77.8,166.5 -77.8,166 -77.8,165.5 -77.8,165 -77.8,164.5 -77.8,164 -77.8,163.5 -77.8,163 -77.8,163 -77.67,163 -77.54,163 -77.41,163 -77.28,163 -77.15,163 -77.02,163 -76.89,163 -76.76,163 -76.63,163 -76.5))", "dataset_titles": "High-resolution benthic seawater temperature record 1999-2012 (25-40m depth) from near intake jetty at McMurdo Station, Antarctica; Metadata associated with the description of Akarotaxis gouldae n. sp. (Bathydraconidae)", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601275", "doi": null, "keywords": "Antarctica; Benthic; McMurdo Sound; Mcmurdo Station; Oceans; Physical Oceanography; Temperature Probe; Water Temperature", "people": "Devries, Arthur; Cziko, Paul; Cheng, Chi-Hing", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "High-resolution benthic seawater temperature record 1999-2012 (25-40m depth) from near intake jetty at McMurdo Station, Antarctica", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601275"}, {"dataset_uid": "601811", "doi": null, "keywords": "Antarctica; Bellingshausen Sea; Cryosphere; Southern Ocean", "people": "Hilton, Eric; Corso, Andrew; Desvignes, Thomas; McDowell, Jan; Cheng, Chi-Hing; Biesack, Ellen; Steinberg, Deborah", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "LTER", "title": "Metadata associated with the description of Akarotaxis gouldae n. sp. (Bathydraconidae)", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601811"}], "date_created": "Wed, 08 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Antarctic notothenioid fishes exhibit two adaptive traits to survive in frigid temperatures. The first of these is the production of anti-freeze proteins in their blood and tissues. The second is a system-wide ability to perform cellular and physiological functions at extremely cold temperatures.The proposal goals are to show how Antarctic fishes use these characteristics to avoid freezing, and which additional genes are turned on, or suppressed in order for these fishes to maintain normal physiological function in extreme cold temperatures. Progressively colder habitats are encountered in the high latitude McMurdo Sound and Ross Shelf region, along with somewhat milder near?shore water environments in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). By quantifying the extent of ice crystals invading and lodging in the spleen, the percentage of McMurdo Sound fish during austral summer (Oct-Feb) will be compared to the WAP intertidal fish during austral winter (Jul-Sep) to demonstrate their capability and extent of freeze avoidance. Resistance to ice entry in surface epithelia (e.g. skin, gill and intestinal lining) is another expression of the adaptation of these fish to otherwise lethally freezing conditions. The adaptive nature of a uniquely characteristic polar genome will be explored by the study of the transcriptome (the set of expressed RNA transcripts that constitutes the precursor to set of proteins expressed by an entire genome). Three notothenioid species (E.maclovinus, D. Mawsoni and C. aceratus) will be analysed to document evolutionary genetic changes (both gain and loss) shaped by life under extreme chronic cold. A differential gene expression (DGE) study will be carried out on these different species to evaluate evolutionary modification of tissue-wide response to heat challenges. The transcriptomes and other sequencing libraries will contribute to de novo ice-fish genome sequencing efforts.", "east": 168.0, "geometry": "POINT(165.5 -77.15)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e CTD", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "McMurdo Sound; MARINE ECOSYSTEMS; Water Temperature; AQUATIC SCIENCES; OCEAN TEMPERATURE; FIELD INVESTIGATION; USAP-DC", "locations": "McMurdo Sound", "north": -76.5, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Cheng, Chi-Hing; Devries, Arthur", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.8, "title": "Antarctic Notothenioid Fish Freeze Avoidance and Genome-wide Evolution for Life in the Cold", "uid": "p0010091", "west": 163.0}, {"awards": "1341496 Girton, James", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-142 -66,-135.3 -66,-128.6 -66,-121.9 -66,-115.2 -66,-108.5 -66,-101.8 -66,-95.1 -66,-88.4 -66,-81.7 -66,-75 -66,-75 -66.8,-75 -67.6,-75 -68.4,-75 -69.2,-75 -70,-75 -70.8,-75 -71.6,-75 -72.4,-75 -73.2,-75 -74,-81.7 -74,-88.4 -74,-95.1 -74,-101.8 -74,-108.5 -74,-115.2 -74,-121.9 -74,-128.6 -74,-135.3 -74,-142 -74,-142 -73.2,-142 -72.4,-142 -71.6,-142 -70.8,-142 -70,-142 -69.2,-142 -68.4,-142 -67.6,-142 -66.8,-142 -66))", "dataset_titles": "Bottom Photographs from the Antarctic Peninsula acquired during R/V Laurence M. Gould expedition LMG1703; Expedition Data; Expedition data of NBP1701", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601302", "doi": null, "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Benthic Images; Benthos; Biota; LMG1708; Oceans; Photo; Photo/video; Photo/Video; R/v Laurence M. Gould; Ship; Yoyo Camera", "people": "Girton, James", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Bottom Photographs from the Antarctic Peninsula acquired during R/V Laurence M. Gould expedition LMG1703", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601302"}, {"dataset_uid": "001369", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP1701"}, {"dataset_uid": "002661", "doi": null, "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of NBP1701", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP1701"}], "date_created": "Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Current oceanographic interest in the interaction of relatively warm water of the Southern Ocean Circumpolar Deep Water ( CDW) as it moves southward to the frigid waters of the Antarctic continental shelves is based on the potential importance of heat transport from the global ocean to the base of continental ice shelves. This is needed to understand the longer term mass balance of the continent, the stability of the vast Antarctic ice sheets and the rate at which sea-level will rise in a warming world. Improved observational knowledge of the mechanisms of how warming CDW moves across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is needed. Understanding this dynamical transport, believed to take place by the eddy flux of time-varying mesoscale circulation features, will improve coupled ocean-atmospheric climate models. The development of the next generation of coupled ocean-ice- climate models help us understand future changes in atmospheric heat fluxes, glacial and sea-ice balance, and changes in the Antarctic ecosystems. A recurring obstacle to our understanding is the lack of data in this distant region. In this project, a number of subsurface profiling EM-APEX floats adapted to operate under sea ice will be launched on up to 4 cruises of opportunity to the Pacific sector during Austral summer. The floats will be launched south of the Polar Front and measure shear, turbulence, temperature, and salinity to 2000m depth for up to 2 year missions while following the CDW layer.", "east": -75.0, "geometry": "POINT(-108.5 -70)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e CTD; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CHEMICAL METERS/ANALYZERS \u003e FLUOROMETERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e GRAVIMETERS \u003e GRAVIMETERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e RECORDERS/LOGGERS \u003e AWS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e ACOUSTIC SOUNDERS \u003e ECHO SOUNDERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e ACOUSTIC SOUNDERS \u003e MBES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e THERMOSALINOGRAPHS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e CAMERAS \u003e CAMERA", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "OCEAN TEMPERATURE; R/V NBP; USAP-DC; ICE DEPTH/THICKNESS; HEAT FLUX; OCEAN CURRENTS; SALINITY/DENSITY; LMG1703; Bellingshausen Sea; Yoyo Camera; WATER MASSES; R/V LMG; NBP1701", "locations": "Bellingshausen Sea", "north": -66.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Girton, James; Rynearson, Tatiana", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V LMG; WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "R2R; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -74.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Pathways of Circumpolar Deep Water to West Antarctica from Profiling Float and Satellite Measurements", "uid": "p0010074", "west": -142.0}, {"awards": "1443371 Fountain, Andrew", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((160.2 -77.1,160.57 -77.1,160.94 -77.1,161.31 -77.1,161.68 -77.1,162.05 -77.1,162.42 -77.1,162.79 -77.1,163.16 -77.1,163.53 -77.1,163.9 -77.1,163.9 -77.196,163.9 -77.292,163.9 -77.388,163.9 -77.484,163.9 -77.58,163.9 -77.676,163.9 -77.772,163.9 -77.868,163.9 -77.964,163.9 -78.06,163.53 -78.06,163.16 -78.06,162.79 -78.06,162.42 -78.06,162.05 -78.06,161.68 -78.06,161.31 -78.06,160.94 -78.06,160.57 -78.06,160.2 -78.06,160.2 -77.964,160.2 -77.868,160.2 -77.772,160.2 -77.676,160.2 -77.58,160.2 -77.484,160.2 -77.388,160.2 -77.292,160.2 -77.196,160.2 -77.1))", "dataset_titles": "McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER: A digital archive of human activity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica from 1902 to present", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "200086", "doi": "10.6073/pasta/0725cbd31f2af4bca2c6ad145e38dd3a", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "EDI", "science_program": null, "title": "McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER: A digital archive of human activity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica from 1902 to present", "url": "https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0725cbd31f2af4bca2c6ad145e38dd3a"}], "date_created": "Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Beginning with the discovery of a \"curious valley\" in 1903 by Captain Scott, the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) in Antarctica have been impacted by humans, although there were only three brief visits prior to 1950. Since the late 1950\u0027s, human activity in the MDV has become commonplace in summer, putting pressure on the region\u0027s fragile ecosystems through camp construction and inhabitation, cross-valley transport on foot and via vehicles, and scientific research that involves sampling and deployment of instruments. Historical photographs, put alongside information from written documentation, offer an invaluable record of the changing patterns of human activity in the MDV. Photographic images often show the physical extent of field camps and research sites, the activities that were taking place, and the environmental protection measures that were being followed. Historical photographs of the MDV, however, are scattered in different places around the world, often in private collections, and there is a real danger that many of these photos may be lost, along with the information they contain. This project will collect and digitize historical photographs of sites of human activity in the MDV from archives and private collections in the United States, New Zealand, and organize them both chronologically and spatially in a GIS database. Sites of past human activities will be re-photographed to provide comparisons with the present, and re-photography will assist in providing spatial data for historical photographs without obvious location information. The results of this analysis will support effective environmental management into the future. The digital photo archive will be openly available through the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (MCM LTER) website (www.mcmlter.org), where it can be used by scientists, environmental managers, and others interested in the region. The central question of this project can be reformulated as a hypothesis: Despite an overall increase in human activities in the MDV, the spatial range of these activities has become more confined over time as a result of an increased awareness of ecosystem fragility and efforts to manage the region. To address this hypothesis, the project will define the spatial distribution and temporal frequency of human activity in the MDV. Photographs and reports will be collected from archives with polar collections such as the National Archives of New Zealand in Wellington and Christchurch and the Byrd Polar Research Center in Ohio. Private photograph collections will be accessed through personal connections, social media, advertisements in periodicals such as The Polar Times, and other means. Re-photography in the field will follow established techniques and will create benchmarks for future research projects. The spatial data will be stored in an ArcGIS database for analysis and quantification of the human footprint over time in the MDV. The improved understanding of changing patterns of human activity in the MDV provided by this historical photo archive will provide three major contributions: 1) a fundamentally important historic accounting of human activity to support current environmental management of the MDV; 2) defining the location and type of human activity will be of immediate benefit in two important ways: a) places to avoid for scientists interested in sampling pristine landscapes, and, b) targets of opportunity for scientists investigating the long-term environmental legacy of human activity; and 3) this research will make an innovative contribution to knowledge of the environmental history of the MDV.", "east": 163.9, "geometry": "POINT(162.05 -77.58)", "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "CONTAMINANT LEVELS/SPILLS; Antarctica; NOT APPLICABLE; USAP-DC", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": -77.1, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Integrated System Science", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Fountain, Andrew; Howkins, Adrian", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "repo": "EDI", "repositories": "EDI", "science_programs": null, "south": -78.06, "title": "Collaborative Research: Assessing Changing Patterns of Human Activity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys using Digital Photo Archives", "uid": "p0010066", "west": 160.2}, {"awards": "1443248 Hall, Brenda; 1443346 Stone, John", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-174 -84.2,-172.4 -84.2,-170.8 -84.2,-169.2 -84.2,-167.6 -84.2,-166 -84.2,-164.4 -84.2,-162.8 -84.2,-161.2 -84.2,-159.6 -84.2,-158 -84.2,-158 -84.36,-158 -84.52,-158 -84.68,-158 -84.84,-158 -85,-158 -85.16,-158 -85.32,-158 -85.48,-158 -85.64,-158 -85.8,-159.6 -85.8,-161.2 -85.8,-162.8 -85.8,-164.4 -85.8,-166 -85.8,-167.6 -85.8,-169.2 -85.8,-170.8 -85.8,-172.4 -85.8,-174 -85.8,-174 -85.64,-174 -85.48,-174 -85.32,-174 -85.16,-174 -85,-174 -84.84,-174 -84.68,-174 -84.52,-174 -84.36,-174 -84.2))", "dataset_titles": "Cosmogenic nuclide data from glacial deposits along the Liv Glacier coast; Ice-D Antarctic Cosmogenic Nuclide database - site DUNCAN; Ice-D Antarctic Cosmogenic Nuclide database - site MAASON; Liv and Amundsen Glacier Radiocarbon Data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601226", "doi": "10.15784/601226", "keywords": "Antarctica; Be-10; Beryllium-10; Cosmogenic; Cosmogenic Dating; Cosmogenic Radionuclides; Deglaciation; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Liv Glacier; Rocks; Ross Ice Sheet; Surface Exposure Dates; Transantarctic Mountains", "people": "Stone, John", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Cosmogenic nuclide data from glacial deposits along the Liv Glacier coast", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601226"}, {"dataset_uid": "200087", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "ICE-D", "science_program": null, "title": "Ice-D Antarctic Cosmogenic Nuclide database - site MAASON", "url": "https://version2.ice-d.org/antarctica/nsf/"}, {"dataset_uid": "200088", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "ICE-D", "science_program": null, "title": "Ice-D Antarctic Cosmogenic Nuclide database - site DUNCAN", "url": "https://version2.ice-d.org/antarctica/nsf/"}, {"dataset_uid": "601208", "doi": "10.15784/601208", "keywords": "Antarctica; Carbon; Glaciology; Holocene; Radiocarbon; Ross Embayment; Ross Sea; Transantarctic Mountains", "people": "Hall, Brenda", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Liv and Amundsen Glacier Radiocarbon Data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601208"}], "date_created": "Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to future climatic changes is recognized as the greatest uncertainty in projections of future sea level. An understanding of past ice fluctuations affords insight into ice-sheet response to climate and sea-level change and thus is critical for improving sea-level predictions. This project will examine deglaciation of the southern Ross Sea over the past few thousand years to document oscillations in Antarctic ice volume during a period of relatively stable climate and sea level. We will help quantify changes in ice volume, improve understanding of the ice dynamics responsible, and examine the implications for future sea-level change. The project will train future scientists through participation of graduate students, as well as undergraduates who will develop research projects in our laboratories. Previous research indicates rapid Ross Sea deglaciation as far south as Beardmore Glacier early in the Holocene epoch (which began approximately 11,700 years before present), followed by more gradual recession. However, deglaciation in the later half of the Holocene remains poorly constrained, with no chronological control on grounding-line migration between Beardmore and Scott Glaciers. Thus, we do not know if mid-Holocene recession drove the grounding line rapidly back to its present position at Scott Glacier, or if the ice sheet withdrew gradually in the absence of significant climate forcing or eustatic sea level change. The latter possibility raises concerns for future stability of the Ross Sea grounding line. To address this question, we will map and date glacial deposits on coastal mountains that constrain the thinning history of Liv and Amundsen Glaciers. By extending our chronology down to the level of floating ice at the mouths of these glaciers, we will date their thinning history from glacial maximum to present, as well as migration of the Ross Sea grounding line southwards along the Transantarctic Mountains. High-resolution dating will come from Beryllium-10 surface-exposure ages of erratics collected along elevation transects, as well as Carbon-14 dates of algae within shorelines from former ice-dammed ponds. Sites have been chosen specifically to allow close comparison of these two dating methods, which will afford constraints on Antarctic Beryllium-10 production rates.", "east": -158.0, "geometry": "POINT(-166 -85)", "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; NOT APPLICABLE; Antarctica; ICE SHEETS; USAP-DC", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": -84.2, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Hall, Brenda; Stone, John", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "ICE-D; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -85.8, "title": "Collaborative Research: High-resolution Reconstruction of Holocene Deglaciation in the Southern Ross Embayment", "uid": "p0010053", "west": -174.0}, {"awards": "1822256 Smith, Craig; 1822289 Vernet, Maria", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-59.5 -62,-59.05 -62,-58.6 -62,-58.15 -62,-57.7 -62,-57.25 -62,-56.8 -62,-56.35 -62,-55.9 -62,-55.45 -62,-55 -62,-55 -62.27,-55 -62.54,-55 -62.81,-55 -63.08,-55 -63.35,-55 -63.62,-55 -63.89,-55 -64.16,-55 -64.43,-55 -64.7,-55.45 -64.7,-55.9 -64.7,-56.35 -64.7,-56.8 -64.7,-57.25 -64.7,-57.7 -64.7,-58.15 -64.7,-58.6 -64.7,-59.05 -64.7,-59.5 -64.7,-59.5 -64.43,-59.5 -64.16,-59.5 -63.89,-59.5 -63.62,-59.5 -63.35,-59.5 -63.08,-59.5 -62.81,-59.5 -62.54,-59.5 -62.27,-59.5 -62))", "dataset_titles": "CTD stations and logs for Araon 2018 ANA08D expedition to Larson C; Yoyo camera survey transects, King George Island and Bransfield Strait", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601199", "doi": "10.15784/601199", "keywords": "Antarctica; Araon; Araon Ana08d; Benthic Images; Benthos; Photo/video; Photo/Video; Southern Ocean; Station List; Yoyo Camera", "people": "Smith, Craig; Ziegler, Amanda", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Yoyo camera survey transects, King George Island and Bransfield Strait", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601199"}, {"dataset_uid": "601178", "doi": "10.15784/601178", "keywords": "Antarctica; Biota; Chlorophyll; CTD; Glacier; Iceberg; Ice Shelf; Larsen C Ice Shelf; Oceans; Physical Oceanography; Phytoplankton; Sample Location; Sea Ice; Southern Ocean; Station List", "people": "Vernet, Maria; Pan, B. Jack", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "CTD stations and logs for Araon 2018 ANA08D expedition to Larson C", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601178"}], "date_created": "Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Marine ecosystems under large ice shelves are thought to contain sparse, low-diversity plankton and seafloor communities due the low supply of food from productive sunlight waters. Past studies have shown sub-ice shelf ecosystems to change in response to altered oceanographic processes resulting from ice-shelve retreat. However, information on community changes and ecosystem structure under ice shelves are limited because sub-ice-shelf ecosystems have either been sampled many years after ice-shelf breakout, or have been sampled through small boreholes, yielding extremely limited spatial information. The recent breakout of the A-68 iceberg from the Larsen C ice shelf in the western Weddell Sea provides an opportunity to use a ship-based study to evaluate benthic communities and water column characteristics in an area recently vacated by a large overlying ice shelf. The opportunity will allow spatial assessments at the time of transition from an under ice-shelf environment to one initially exposed to conditions more typical of a coastal Antarctic marine setting. This RAPID project will help determine the state of a coastal Antarctic ecosystem newly exposed from ice-shelf cover and will aid in understanding of rates of community change during transition. The project will conduct a 10-day field program, allowing contrasts to be made of phytoplankton and seafloor megafaunal communities in areas recently exposed by ice-shelf loss to areas exposed for many decades. The project will be undertaken in a collaborative manner with the South Korean Antarctic Agency, KOPRI, by participating in a cruise in March/May 2018. Combining new information in the area of Larsen C with existing observations after the Larsen A and B ice shelf breakups further to the north, the project is expected to generate a dataset that can elucidate fundamental processes of planktonic and benthic community development in transition from food-poor to food-rich ecosystems. The project will provide field experience to two graduate students, a post-doctoral associate and an undergraduate student. Material from the project will be incorporated into graduate courses and the project will communicate daily work and unfolding events through social media and blogs while they explore this area of the world that is largely underexplored. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": -55.0, "geometry": "POINT(-57.25 -63.35)", "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Antarctica; R/V NBP; Sea Floor; ANIMALS/INVERTEBRATES; ICEBERGS; USAP-DC", "locations": "Antarctica; Sea Floor", "north": -62.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Vernet, Maria; Smith, Craig", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -64.7, "title": "RAPID: Collaborative Research: Marine Ecosystem Response to the Larsen C Ice-Shelf Breakout: \"Time zero\"", "uid": "p0010029", "west": -59.5}, {"awards": "1341612 Bowser, Samuel", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Aerial survey of Explorers Cove shoreline, late January 2005; Astrammina rara genome sequencing and assembly; Astrammina triangularis genome sequencing and assembly; Crithionina delacai mitochondrial genome sequence and assembly; Scanning electron micrographs: Influence of heavy metal (Pb, Cd) exposure on shell morphogenesis in Astrammina rara, a giant agglutinated Antarctic foraminiferan protist", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601229", "doi": "10.15784/601229", "keywords": "Aerial Imagery; Antarctica; Camera; Delta; Freshwater; Helicopter; Moat; Shoreline Survey; Small Ponds; Snow Melt; Tide Pools", "people": "Bowser, Samuel; Alexander, Steve", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Aerial survey of Explorers Cove shoreline, late January 2005", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601229"}, {"dataset_uid": "200089", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NCBI GenBank", "science_program": null, "title": "Astrammina triangularis genome sequencing and assembly", "url": "https://dataview.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/object/PRJNA521279?reviewer=g418tpq02sif2g6do94dpmmjdv"}, {"dataset_uid": "601138", "doi": "10.15784/601138", "keywords": "Antarctica; Biota; Foraminifera; Heavy Metal Toxicity; Scanning Electron Microscop; Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Images; Scanning Electron Microscopy; Transantarctic Mountains", "people": "Bowser, Samuel; Andreas, Amanda", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Scanning electron micrographs: Influence of heavy metal (Pb, Cd) exposure on shell morphogenesis in Astrammina rara, a giant agglutinated Antarctic foraminiferan protist", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601138"}, {"dataset_uid": "200090", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NCBI GenBank", "science_program": null, "title": "Astrammina rara genome sequencing and assembly", "url": "https://dataview.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/object/PRJNA521081?reviewer=25e190ih1svottjkrrpfa7huoe"}, {"dataset_uid": "200091", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NCBI GenBank", "science_program": null, "title": "Crithionina delacai mitochondrial genome sequence and assembly", "url": "https://dataview.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/object/PRJNA592714?reviewer=ivse8455h3gfaiilg4nqle0vm1"}], "date_created": "Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Agglutinated foraminifera (forams for short) are early-evolving, single-celled organisms. These \"living fossils\" construct protective shells using sediment grains held together by adhesive substances that they secrete. During shell construction, agglutinated forams display amazing properties of selection - for example, some species build their shells of clear quartz grains, while other species use only grains of a specific size. Understanding how these single cells assemble complex structures may contribute to nanotechnology by enabling people to use forams as \"cellular machines\" to aid in the construction of nano-devices. This project will analyze the genomes of at least six key foram species, and then \"mine\" these genomes for technologically useful products and processes. The project will focus initially on the adhesive materials forams secrete, which may have wide application in biomedicine and biotechnology. Furthermore, the work will further develop a molecular toolkit which could open up new avenues of research on the physiology, ecology, and population dynamics of this important group of Antarctic organisms. The project will also further the NSF goals of making scientific discoveries available to the general public and of training new generations of scientists. Educational experiences related to the \"thrill of scientific exploration and discovery\" for students and the general public will be provided through freely-available short films and a traveling art/science exhibition. The project will also provide hands-on research opportunities for undergraduate students. Explorers Cove, situated on the western shore of McMurdo Sound, harbors a unique population of foraminiferan taxa at depths accessible by scuba diving that otherwise are primarily found in the deep sea. The project will use next-generation DNA sequencing and microdissection methods to obtain and analyze nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from crown members of two species each from three distinct, early-evolving foraminiferal groups. It will also use next generation sequencing methods to characterize the in-situ prokaryotic assemblages (microbiomes) of one of these groups and compare them to reference sediment microbiomes. The phyogenomic studies of the targeted Antarctic genera will help fill significant gaps in our current understanding of early foram evolution. Furthermore, comparative genomic analyses of these six species are expected to yield a better understanding of the physiology of single-chambered agglutinated forams, especially the bioadhesive proteins and regulatory factors involved in shell composition and morphogenesis. Additionally, the molecular basis of cold adaptation in forams will be examined, particularly with respect to key proteins.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "USAP-DC; NOT APPLICABLE", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Bowser, Samuel", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "NCBI GenBank; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Assembling and Mining the Genomes of Giant Antarctic Foraminifera", "uid": "p0000004", "west": null}, {"awards": "2023425 Schofield, Oscar; 1440435 Ducklow, Hugh", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-80 -63,-78.3 -63,-76.6 -63,-74.9 -63,-73.2 -63,-71.5 -63,-69.8 -63,-68.1 -63,-66.4 -63,-64.7 -63,-63 -63,-63 -63.8,-63 -64.6,-63 -65.4,-63 -66.2,-63 -67,-63 -67.8,-63 -68.6,-63 -69.4,-63 -70.2,-63 -71,-64.7 -71,-66.4 -71,-68.1 -71,-69.8 -71,-71.5 -71,-73.2 -71,-74.9 -71,-76.6 -71,-78.3 -71,-80 -71,-80 -70.2,-80 -69.4,-80 -68.6,-80 -67.8,-80 -67,-80 -66.2,-80 -65.4,-80 -64.6,-80 -63.8,-80 -63))", "dataset_titles": "Environmental Data Initiative Repository, Supporting LTER; Expedition Data; Expedition data of LMG1501; Expedition data of LMG1601; Expedition data of LMG1701; Expedition data of LMG1801; Expedition data of LMG1901; Metadata associated with the description of Akarotaxis gouldae n. sp. (Bathydraconidae); UAV images and video of whales in the Antarctic Penisula during LMG1802", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "001367", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1701"}, {"dataset_uid": "000246", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "EDI", "science_program": null, "title": "Environmental Data Initiative Repository, Supporting LTER", "url": "https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/browseServlet?searchValue=PAL"}, {"dataset_uid": "200124", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG1801", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1801"}, {"dataset_uid": "200125", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG1901", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1901"}, {"dataset_uid": "200122", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG1501", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1501"}, {"dataset_uid": "200123", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG1601", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1601"}, {"dataset_uid": "601811", "doi": null, "keywords": "Antarctica; Bellingshausen Sea; Cryosphere; Southern Ocean", "people": "Hilton, Eric; Corso, Andrew; Desvignes, Thomas; McDowell, Jan; Cheng, Chi-Hing; Biesack, Ellen; Steinberg, Deborah", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "LTER", "title": "Metadata associated with the description of Akarotaxis gouldae n. sp. (Bathydraconidae)", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601811"}, {"dataset_uid": "002729", "doi": null, "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG1701", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1701"}, {"dataset_uid": "601318", "doi": "10.15784/601318", "keywords": "Aerial Imagery; Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Biota; Camera; Humpback Whales; LMG1802; LTER; Minke Whales; Oceans; Palmer Station; Photo; Photo/video; Photo/Video; R/v Laurence M. Gould; Species Size; UAV; Video Data; Whales", "people": "Dale, Julian; Boyer, Keyvi; Friedlaender, Ari; Nowacek, Douglas; Bierlich, KC", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "LTER", "title": "UAV images and video of whales in the Antarctic Penisula during LMG1802", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601318"}], "date_created": "Fri, 11 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The Palmer Antarctica LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) site has been in operation since 1990. The goal of all the LTER sites is to conduct policy-relevant research on ecological questions that require tens of years of data, and cover large geographical areas. For the Palmer Antarctica LTER, the questions are centered around how the marine ecosystem west of the Antarctica peninsula is responding to a climate that is changing as rapidly as any place on the Earth. For example, satellite observations over the past 35 years indicate the average duration of sea ice cover is now ~90 days (3 months!) shorter than it was. The extended period of open water has implications for many aspects of ecosystem research, with the concurrent decrease of Ad\u00e8lie penguins within this region regularly cited as an exemplar of climate change impacts in Antarctica. Cutting edge technologies such as autonomous underwater (and possibly airborne) vehicles, seafloor moorings, and numerical modeling, coupled with annual oceanographic cruises, and weekly environmental sampling, enables the Palmer Antarctica LTER to expand and bridge the time and space scales needed to assess climatic impacts. This award includes for the first time study of the roles of whales as major predators in the seasonal sea ice zone ecosystem. The team will also focus on submarine canyons, special regions of enhanced biological activity, along the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). The current award\u0027s overarching research question is: How do seasonality, interannual variability, and long term trends in sea ice extent and duration influence the structure and dynamics of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling? Specific foci within the broad question include: 1. Long-term change and ecosystem transitions. What is the sensitivity or resilience of the ecosystem to external perturbations as a function of the ecosystem state? 2. Lateral connectivity and vertical stratification. What are the effects of lateral transports of freshwater, heat and nutrients on local ocean stratification and productivity and how do they drive changes in the ecosystem? 3. Top-down controls and shifting baselines. How is the ecosystem responding to the cessation of whaling and subsequent long-term recovery of whale stocks? 4. Foodweb structure and biogeochemical processes. How do temporal and spatial variations in foodweb structure influence carbon and nutrient cycling, export, and storage? The broader impacts of the award leverage local educational partnerships including the Sandwich, MA STEM Academy, the New England Aquarium, and the NSF funded Polar Learning and Responding (PoLAR) Climate Change Education Partnership at Columbia\u0027s Earth Institute to build new synergies between Arctic and Antarctic, marine and terrestrial scientists and students, governments and NGOs. The Palmer Antarctic LTER will also conduct appropriate cross LTER site comparisons, and serve as a leader in information management to enable knowledge-building within and beyond the Antarctic, oceanographic, and LTER communities.", "east": -63.0, "geometry": "POINT(-71.5 -67)", "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e CTD; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CHEMICAL METERS/ANALYZERS \u003e FLUOROMETERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e RECORDERS/LOGGERS \u003e AWS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e ACOUSTIC SOUNDERS \u003e ECHO SOUNDERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e THERMOSALINOGRAPHS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "PELAGIC; USAP-DC; R/V LMG; NOT APPLICABLE; Palmer Station; LMG1701", "locations": "Palmer Station", "north": -63.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Integrated System Science; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Integrated System Science; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Ducklow, Hugh; Martinson, Doug; Schofield, Oscar", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE; WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V LMG", "repo": "R2R", "repositories": "EDI; R2R; USAP-DC", "science_programs": "LTER", "south": -71.0, "title": "LTER Palmer, Antarctica (PAL): Land-Shelf-Ocean Connectivity, Ecosystem Resilience and Transformation in a Sea-Ice Influenced Pelagic Ecosystem", "uid": "p0000133", "west": -80.0}, {"awards": "1355533 Dayton, Paul", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((163 -78,163.4 -78,163.8 -78,164.2 -78,164.6 -78,165 -78,165.4 -78,165.8 -78,166.2 -78,166.6 -78,167 -78,167 -78.05,167 -78.1,167 -78.15,167 -78.2,167 -78.25,167 -78.3,167 -78.35,167 -78.4,167 -78.45,167 -78.5,166.6 -78.5,166.2 -78.5,165.8 -78.5,165.4 -78.5,165 -78.5,164.6 -78.5,164.2 -78.5,163.8 -78.5,163.4 -78.5,163 -78.5,163 -78.45,163 -78.4,163 -78.35,163 -78.3,163 -78.25,163 -78.2,163 -78.15,163 -78.1,163 -78.05,163 -78))", "dataset_titles": "A Multi-decadal Record of Antarctic Benthos: Image Analysis to Maximize Data Utilization", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "600164", "doi": "10.15784/600164", "keywords": "Antarctica; Bentic Fauna; Biota; McMurdo Sound; Oceans; Ross Sea; Sample/collection Description; Sample/Collection Description; Southern Ocean", "people": "Dayton, Paul", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "A Multi-decadal Record of Antarctic Benthos: Image Analysis to Maximize Data Utilization", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600164"}], "date_created": "Tue, 31 May 2016 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Antarctic benthic communities are characterized by many species of sponges (Phylum Porifera), long thought to exhibit extremely slow demographic patterns of settlement, growth and reproduction. This project will analyze many hundreds of diver and remotely operated underwater vehicle photographs documenting a unique, episodic settlement event that occurred between 2000 and 2010 in McMurdo Sound that challenges this paradigm of slow growth. Artificial structures were placed on the seafloor between 1967 and 1974 at several sites, but no sponges were observed to settle on these structures until 2004. By 2010 some 40 species of sponges had settled and grown to be surprisingly large. Given the paradigm of slow settlement and growth supported by the long observation period (37 years, 1967-2004), this extraordinary large-scale settlement and rapid growth over just a 6-year time span is astonishing. This project utilizes image processing software (ImageJ) to obtain metrics (linear dimensions to estimate size, frequency, percent cover) for sponges and other fauna visible in the photographs. It uses R to conduct multidimensional scaling to ordinate community data and ANOSIM to test for differences of community data among sites and times and structures. It will also use SIMPER and ranked species abundances to discriminate species responsible for any differences. This work focuses on Antarctic sponges, but the observations of massive episodic recruitment and growth are important to understanding seafloor communities worldwide. Ecosystems are composed of populations, and populations are ecologically described by their distribution and abundance. A little appreciated fact is that sponges often dominate marine communities, but because sponges are so hard to study, most workers focus on other groups such as corals, kelps, or bivalves. Because most sponges settle and grow slowly their life history is virtually unstudied. The assumption of relative stasis of the Antarctic seafloor community is common, and this project will shatter this paradigm by documenting a dramatic episodic event. Finally, the project takes advantage of old transects from the 1960s and 1970s and compares them with extensive 2010 surveys of the same habitats and sometimes the same intact transect lines, offering a long-term perspective of community change. The investigators will publish these results in peer-reviewed journals, give presentations to the general public and will involve students from local outreach programs, high schools, and undergraduates at UCSD to help with the analysis.", "east": 167.0, "geometry": "POINT(165 -78.25)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -78.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Dayton, Paul", "platforms": "Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -78.5, "title": "EAGER: A Multi-decadal Record of Antarctic Benthos: Image Analysis to Maximize Data Utilization", "uid": "p0000401", "west": 163.0}, {"awards": "1141326 Rotella, Jay", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((163.1 -70.3,163.59 -70.3,164.08 -70.3,164.57 -70.3,165.06 -70.3,165.55 -70.3,166.04 -70.3,166.53 -70.3,167.02 -70.3,167.51 -70.3,168 -70.3,168 -70.98,168 -71.66,168 -72.34,168 -73.02,168 -73.7,168 -74.38,168 -75.06,168 -75.74,168 -76.42,168 -77.1,167.51 -77.1,167.02 -77.1,166.53 -77.1,166.04 -77.1,165.55 -77.1,165.06 -77.1,164.57 -77.1,164.08 -77.1,163.59 -77.1,163.1 -77.1,163.1 -76.42,163.1 -75.74,163.1 -75.06,163.1 -74.38,163.1 -73.7,163.1 -73.02,163.1 -72.34,163.1 -71.66,163.1 -70.98,163.1 -70.3))", "dataset_titles": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2017 Antarctic field season", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601125", "doi": "10.15784/601125", "keywords": "Antarctica; Biota; Sea Ice", "people": "Rotella, Jay", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Demographic data for Weddell Seal colonies in Erebus Bay through the 2017 Antarctic field season", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601125"}], "date_created": "Mon, 08 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Abstract The Erebus Bay population of Weddell seals in Antarctica?s Ross Sea is the most southerly breeding population of mammal in the world, closely associated with persistent shore-fast ice, and one that has been intensively studied since 1968. The resulting long-term database, which includes data for 20,586 marked individuals, contains detailed population information that provides an excellent opportunity to study linkages between environmental conditions and demographic processes in the Antarctic. The population?s location is of special interest as the Ross Sea is one of the most productive areas of the Southern Ocean, one of the few pristine marine environments remaining on the planet, and, in contrast to the Antarctic Peninsula and Arctic, is undergoing a gradual lengthening of the sea-ice season. The work to be continued here capitalizes on (1) long-term data for individual seals and their polar environment; (2) experience collecting and analyzing data from the extensive study population; and (3) recent statistical advances in hierarchical modeling that allow for rigorous treatment of individual heterogeneity (in mark-recapture and body mass data) and inclusion of diverse covariates hypothesized to explain variation in fitness components. Covariates to be considered include traits of individuals and their mothers and environmental conditions throughout life. The study will continue to (1) provide detailed data on known-age individuals to other science projects and (2) educate and mentor the next generation of ecologists through academic and professional training and research experiences.", "east": 168.0, "geometry": "POINT(165.55 -73.7)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -70.3, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Rotella, Jay; Garrott, Robert", "platforms": "Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.1, "title": "The Demographic Consequences of Environmental Variability and Individual Heterogeneity in Life-history Tactics of a Long-lived Antarctic Marine Predator", "uid": "p0000299", "west": 163.1}, {"awards": "0739390 Davis, Randall", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((166.08823 -77.545,166.177124 -77.545,166.266018 -77.545,166.354912 -77.545,166.443806 -77.545,166.5327 -77.545,166.621594 -77.545,166.710488 -77.545,166.799382 -77.545,166.888276 -77.545,166.97717 -77.545,166.97717 -77.57736,166.97717 -77.60972,166.97717 -77.64208,166.97717 -77.67444,166.97717 -77.7068,166.97717 -77.73916,166.97717 -77.77152,166.97717 -77.80388,166.97717 -77.83624,166.97717 -77.8686,166.888276 -77.8686,166.799382 -77.8686,166.710488 -77.8686,166.621594 -77.8686,166.5327 -77.8686,166.443806 -77.8686,166.354912 -77.8686,166.266018 -77.8686,166.177124 -77.8686,166.08823 -77.8686,166.08823 -77.83624,166.08823 -77.80388,166.08823 -77.77152,166.08823 -77.73916,166.08823 -77.7068,166.08823 -77.67444,166.08823 -77.64208,166.08823 -77.60972,166.08823 -77.57736,166.08823 -77.545))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Fri, 17 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Intellectual Merit: Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) locate and capture sparsely distributed and mobile prey under shore-fast ice throughout the year, including the austral winter when ambient light levels are very low and access to breathing holes is highly limited. This is one of the most challenging environments occupied by an aquatic mammalian predator, and it presents unique opportunities to test hypotheses concerning: 1) behavioral strategies and energetic costs for foraging and 2) sensory modalities used for prey capture under sea ice. To accomplish these objectives, we will attach digital video and data recorders to the backs of free-ranging Weddell seals during the autumn, winter and early spring. These instruments simultaneously record video of prey pursuit and capture and three-dimensional movements, swimming performance, ambient light level and other environmental variables. Energetic costs for entire dives and portions of dives will be estimated from stroking effort and our published relationship between swimming performance and energetics for Weddell seals. The energetic cost of different dive types will be evaluated for strategies that maximize foraging efficiency, range (distance traveled), and duration of submergence. The proposed study will provide a more thorough understanding of the role of vision and changing light conditions in foraging behavior, sensory ecology, energetics and habitat use of Weddell seals and the distribution of encountered prey. It also will provide new insights into survival strategies that allow Weddell seals to inhabit the Antarctic coastal marine ecosystem throughout the year. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eBroader Impacts: The proposed study will train two graduate students and a Post-doctoral Fellow. Outreach activities will include interviews, written material and photographs provided to print and electronic media, project web sites, high school email exchanges from McMurdo Station, hosting visiting artists at our field camp, and public lectures. We will provide a weekly summary of our research findings to teachers and students in elementary school programs through our websites, one of which received an educational award. Our previous projects have attracted an extraordinary amount of press coverage that effectively brings scientific research to the public. This coverage and the video images generated by our work excite the imagination and help instill an interest in science and wildlife conservation in children and adults.", "east": 166.97717, "geometry": "POINT(166.5327 -77.7068)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -77.545, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Davis, Randall", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -77.8686, "title": "Collaborative Research: Hunting in Darkness: Behavioral and Energetic Strategies of Weddell Seals in Winter", "uid": "p0000357", "west": 166.08823}, {"awards": "0649609 Horning, Markus", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((165.975 -77.54,166.0631 -77.54,166.1512 -77.54,166.2393 -77.54,166.3274 -77.54,166.4155 -77.54,166.5036 -77.54,166.5917 -77.54,166.6798 -77.54,166.7679 -77.54,166.856 -77.54,166.856 -77.5709,166.856 -77.6018,166.856 -77.6327,166.856 -77.6636,166.856 -77.6945,166.856 -77.7254,166.856 -77.7563,166.856 -77.7872,166.856 -77.8181,166.856 -77.849,166.7679 -77.849,166.6798 -77.849,166.5917 -77.849,166.5036 -77.849,166.4155 -77.849,166.3274 -77.849,166.2393 -77.849,166.1512 -77.849,166.0631 -77.849,165.975 -77.849,165.975 -77.8181,165.975 -77.7872,165.975 -77.7563,165.975 -77.7254,165.975 -77.6945,165.975 -77.6636,165.975 -77.6327,165.975 -77.6018,165.975 -77.5709,165.975 -77.54))", "dataset_titles": "Aging in Weddell Seals: Proximate Mechanisms of Age-Related Changes in Adaptations to Breath-Hold Hunting in an Extreme Environment", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "600071", "doi": "10.15784/600071", "keywords": "Antarctica; Biota; McMurdo; Oceans; Seals; Southern Ocean", "people": "Horning, Markus", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Aging in Weddell Seals: Proximate Mechanisms of Age-Related Changes in Adaptations to Breath-Hold Hunting in an Extreme Environment", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600071"}], "date_created": "Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The primary objectives of this research are to investigate the proximate effects of aging on diving capability in the Weddell Seal and to describe mechanisms by which aging may influence foraging ecology, through physiology and behavior. This model pinniped species has been the focus of three decades of research in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Compared to the knowledge of pinniped diving physiology and ecology during early development and young adulthood, little is known about individuals nearing the upper limit of their normal reproductive age range. Evolutionary aging theories predict that elderly diving seals should exhibit senescence. This should be exacerbated by surges in the generation of oxygen free radicals via hypoxia-reoxygenation during breath-hold diving and hunting, which are implicated in age-related damage to cellular mitochondria. Surprisingly, limited observations of non-threatened pinniped populations indicate that senescence does not occur to a level where reproductive output is affected. The ability of pinnipeds to avoid apparent senescence raises two major questions: what specific physiological and morphological changes occur with advancing age in pinnipeds and what subtle adjustments are made by these animals to cope with such changes? This investigation will focus on specific, functional physiological and behavioral changes relating to dive capability with advancing age. The investigators will quantify age-related changes in general health and body condition, combined with fine scale assessments of external and internal ability to do work in the form of diving. Specifically, patterns of oxidative status and oxygen use with age will be examined. The effects of age on muscular function, contractile capacity in vascular smooth muscle, and exercise capacity via exercise performance in skeletal muscle will be examined. Data will be compared between Weddell seals in the peak, and near the end, of their reproductive age range. An assessment will be made of the ability to do external work (i.e. diving) as well as muscle functionality (ability to do internal work). The investigators hypothesize that senescence does occur in Weddell seals at the level of small-scale, proximate physiological effects and performance, but that behavioral plasticity allows for a given degree of compensation. Broader impacts include the training of students and outreach activities including interviews and articles written for the popular media. Photographs and project summaries will be available to the interested public on the project website. This study should also establish diving seals as a novel model for the study of cardiovascular and muscular physiology of aging. Research on Weddell seals could validate this model and thus develop a foundation for similar research on other species. Advancement of the understanding of aging by medical science has been impressive in recent years and the development of new models for the study of aging has tremendous potential benefits to society at large", "east": 166.856, "geometry": "POINT(166.4155 -77.6945)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -77.54, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Horning, Markus", "platforms": "Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.849, "title": "Collaborative Research: Aging in Weddell Seals: Proximate Mechanisms of Age-Related Changes in Adaptations to Breath-Hold Hunting in an Extreme Environment", "uid": "p0000487", "west": 165.975}, {"awards": "9419605 Dunbar, Robert; 9896356 Dunbar, Robert", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -43.56493,-144.00001 -43.56493,-108.00002 -43.56493,-72.00003 -43.56493,-36.00004 -43.56493,-0.000049999999987 -43.56493,35.99994 -43.56493,71.99993 -43.56493,107.99992 -43.56493,143.99991 -43.56493,179.9999 -43.56493,179.9999 -47.023783,179.9999 -50.482636,179.9999 -53.941489,179.9999 -57.400342,179.9999 -60.859195,179.9999 -64.318048,179.9999 -67.776901,179.9999 -71.235754,179.9999 -74.694607,179.9999 -78.15346,143.99991 -78.15346,107.99992 -78.15346,71.99993 -78.15346,35.99994 -78.15346,-0.000050000000016 -78.15346,-36.00004 -78.15346,-72.00003 -78.15346,-108.00002 -78.15346,-144.00001 -78.15346,-180 -78.15346,-180 -74.694607,-180 -71.235754,-180 -67.776901,-180 -64.318048,-180 -60.859195,-180 -57.400342,-180 -53.941489,-180 -50.482636,-180 -47.023783,-180 -43.56493))", "dataset_titles": "Expedition Data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "002094", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9807"}, {"dataset_uid": "002132", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9709"}, {"dataset_uid": "002154", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9606"}], "date_created": "Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project is an interdisciplinary study, titled Research on Ocean-Atmosphere Variability and Ecosystem Response in the Ross Sea (ROAVERRS), of atmospheric forcing, ocean hydrography, sea ice dynamics, primary productivity, and pelagic-benthic coupling in the southwestern Ross Sea, Antarctica. The primary goal is to examine how changes in aspects of the polar climate system, in this case wind and temperature, combine to influence marine productivity on a large antarctic continental shelf. In the Ross Sea, katabatic winds and mesocyclones influence the spatial and temporal distribution of sea ice as well as the upper ocean mixed layer depth, and thus control primary production within the sea ice as well as in the open water system. The structure, standing stock and productivity of bottom- dwelling biological communities are also linked to meteorological processes through interseasonal and interannual variations in horizontal and vertical fluxes of organic carbon produced in the upper ocean. Linkages among the atmospheric, oceanic, and biological systems will be investigated during a three-year field study of the southwestern Ross Sea ecosystem. Direct measurements will include regional wind and air temperatures derived from automatic weather stations; ice cover, ice movement, and sea surface temperatures derived from a variety of satellite-based sensors; hydrographic characteristics of the upper ocean and primary productivity in the ice and in the water derived from research cruises and satellite studies; vertical flux of organic material and water movement derived from oceanographic moorings containing sediment traps and current meters, and the abundance, distribution, and respiration rates of biological communities on the sea floor, derived from box cores, benthic photographs and shipboard incubations. Based on archived meteorological data, it is expected that the atmospheric variability during the study period will be such that changes in airflow pat terns and their influence on oceanographic and biological patterns can be monitored, and their direct and indirect linkages that are the focus of the research can be deduced. Results from this study will contribute to our knowledge of atmospheric and oceanic forcing of marine ecosystems, and lead to a better understanding of marine ecosystem response to climatic variations. ***", "east": 179.9999, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e GRAVIMETERS \u003e GRAVIMETERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "R/V NBP", "locations": null, "north": -43.56493, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences; Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Dunbar, Robert", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "R2R", "repositories": "R2R", "science_programs": null, "south": -78.15346, "title": "Research on Ocean-Atmosphere Variability and Ecosystem Response in the Ross Sea (ROAVERRS)", "uid": "p0000635", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "0636696 DeVries, Arthur", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-68.0025 -52.7599,-67.07254 -52.7599,-66.14258 -52.7599,-65.21262 -52.7599,-64.28266 -52.7599,-63.3527 -52.7599,-62.42274 -52.7599,-61.49278 -52.7599,-60.56282 -52.7599,-59.63286 -52.7599,-58.7029 -52.7599,-58.7029 -53.98242,-58.7029 -55.20494,-58.7029 -56.42746,-58.7029 -57.64998,-58.7029 -58.8725,-58.7029 -60.09502,-58.7029 -61.31754,-58.7029 -62.54006,-58.7029 -63.76258,-58.7029 -64.9851,-59.63286 -64.9851,-60.56282 -64.9851,-61.49278 -64.9851,-62.42274 -64.9851,-63.3527 -64.9851,-64.28266 -64.9851,-65.21262 -64.9851,-66.14258 -64.9851,-67.07254 -64.9851,-68.0025 -64.9851,-68.0025 -63.76258,-68.0025 -62.54006,-68.0025 -61.31754,-68.0025 -60.09502,-68.0025 -58.8725,-68.0025 -57.64998,-68.0025 -56.42746,-68.0025 -55.20494,-68.0025 -53.98242,-68.0025 -52.7599))", "dataset_titles": "Expedition Data; Expedition data of LMG0809; Metadata associated with the description of Akarotaxis gouldae n. sp. (Bathydraconidae)", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601811", "doi": null, "keywords": "Antarctica; Bellingshausen Sea; Cryosphere; Southern Ocean", "people": "Hilton, Eric; Corso, Andrew; Desvignes, Thomas; McDowell, Jan; Cheng, Chi-Hing; Biesack, Ellen; Steinberg, Deborah", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "LTER", "title": "Metadata associated with the description of Akarotaxis gouldae n. sp. (Bathydraconidae)", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601811"}, {"dataset_uid": "001504", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG0809"}, {"dataset_uid": "002728", "doi": null, "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG0809", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG0809"}, {"dataset_uid": "001493", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG0810"}], "date_created": "Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Antarctic notothenioid fish evolved antifreeze (AF) proteins that prevent ice crystals that enter their body fluids from growing, and thereby avoid freezing in their icy habitats. However, even in the extreme cold Antarctic marine environment, regional gradations of severity are found. The biological correlate for environmental severity in fish is the endogenous ice load, which likely determines the tolerable limit of environmental severity for notothenioid habitation. The endogenous ice load develops from environmental ice crystals entering through body surfaces and somehow localizing to the spleen. How prone the surface tissues are to ice entry, how ice reaches the spleen, and what the fate of splenic ice is, requires elucidation. Spleen sequestration of ice raises the hypothesis that macrophages may play a role in the translocation and perhaps elimination of AF-bound ice crystals. Antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGP) act in concert with a second, recently discovered antifreeze called antifreeze potentiating protein (AFPP), necessitating an assessment of the contribution of AFPP to freezing avoidance. Recent research suggests that the exocrine pancreas and the anterior stomach, not the liver, synthesize AFGPs and secrete them into the intestine, from where they may be returned to the blood. A GI-to-blood transport is a highly unconventional path for a major plasma protein and also begs the questions, What is the source of blood AFPP?. Why are two distinct AF proteins needed and what is the chronology of their evolution? What genomic changes in the DNA are associated with the development or loss of the antifreeze trait? Experiments described in this proposal address these interrelated questions of environmental, organismal, and evolutionary physiology, and will further our understanding of novel vertebrate physiologies, the limits of environmental adaptation, and climatically driven changes in the genome. The proposed research will (1) determine the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of environmental temperature and iciness in progressively more severe fish habitats in the greater McMurdo Sound area, and in the milder Arthur Harbor at Palmer Station. The splenic ice load in fishes inhabiting these sites will be determined to correlate to environmental severity and habitability. (2) Assess the surface tissue site of ice entry and their relative barrier properties in intact fish and isolated tissues preparations (3) Assess the role of immune cells in the fate of endogenous ice, (4) determine whether the blood AFGPs are from intestinal/rectal uptake, (5) examine the contribution of AFPP to the total blood AF activity (6) evaluate the progression of genomic changes in the AFGP locus across Notothenioidei as modulated by disparate thermal environments, in four selected species through the analyses of large insert DNA BAC clones. The origin and evolution of AFPP will be examined also by analyzing BAC clones encompassing the AFPP genomic locus. The broader impacts of the proposed research include training of graduate and undergraduate students in research approaches ranging from physical field measurements to cutting edge genomics. Undergraduate research projects have lead to co-authored publications and will continue to do so. Outreach includes establishing Wiki websites on topics of Antarctic fish biology and freeze avoidance, providing advisory services to the San Francisco Science Exploratorium, and making BAC libraries available to interested polar biologists. This research theme has repeatedly received national and international science news coverage and will continue to be disseminated to the public in that manner.", "east": -58.7029, "geometry": "POINT(-63.3527 -58.8725)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e CTD; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e ACOUSTIC SOUNDERS \u003e ADCP", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "R/V LMG", "locations": null, "north": -52.7599, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Devries, Arthur", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V LMG", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "R2R; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -64.9851, "title": "Environmental, Organismal and Evolutionary Physiology of Freeze Avoidance in Antarctic Notothenioid Fishes", "uid": "p0000560", "west": -68.0025}, {"awards": "0551969 Moran, Amy", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project seeks to understand the evolutionary physiology of reproductive strategies in Southern Ocean marine invertebrates. The fauna of the Southern Ocean has evolved under stable, cold temperatures for approximately 14 million years. These conditions have led to the evolution of unusual physiological and biochemical characteristics, many of which may reflect adaptations to relatively low oxygen availability and high larval oxygen demands. The goal of the proposed projects is to understand latitudinal variation in the function of invertebrate egg masses in relation to oxygen availability and temperature. This relationship is critical to larval survival in the low-temperature, high-oxygen conditions found at high latitudes. In particular, the investigators will: (1) use first principles to model the diffusion of oxygen into egg and embryo masses of Antarctic organisms at environmentally relevant temperatures; (2) test model assumptions by measuring the temperature-dependence of embryonic metabolism and oxygen diffusivity through natural and artificial gels; (3) test model predictions by using oxygen microelectrodes to measure oxygen gradients in both artificial and natural egg masses, and by measuring developmental rates of embryos at different positions in masses; and (4) compare the structure and function of egg masses from the Southern Ocean to those from temperate waters. These components of the study constitute an integrated examination of the evolutionary physiology of egg mass structure and function. Studies of masses endemic to polar conditions will increase the understanding of egg mass evolution across equator-to-pole gradients in temperature and across gradients in oxygen partial pressure. The proposal will support graduate students and will involve several undergraduates in research. The PIs will also design and implement units on polar biology for undergraduate classes at their respective institutions. These educational units will focus on the PIs\u0027 photographs, video footage, experiments, and data from this project. The PIs will use web-linked video and instructional technologies to design and co-teach a new class on polar ecological physiology, will work with local grade school institutions to involve high school students in research, and will develop high school course modules about polar biology.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Moran, Amy", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Collaborative Research: Effects of Oxygen and Temperature on Egg Mass Function of Southern Ocean Marine Minvertebrates", "uid": "p0000716", "west": null}, {"awards": "0238281 Marsh, Adam", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((163 -77,163.4 -77,163.8 -77,164.2 -77,164.6 -77,165 -77,165.4 -77,165.8 -77,166.2 -77,166.6 -77,167 -77,167 -77.1,167 -77.2,167 -77.3,167 -77.4,167 -77.5,167 -77.6,167 -77.7,167 -77.8,167 -77.9,167 -78,166.6 -78,166.2 -78,165.8 -78,165.4 -78,165 -78,164.6 -78,164.2 -78,163.8 -78,163.4 -78,163 -78,163 -77.9,163 -77.8,163 -77.7,163 -77.6,163 -77.5,163 -77.4,163 -77.3,163 -77.2,163 -77.1,163 -77))", "dataset_titles": "Marine Invertebrates of McMurdo Sound", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "600034", "doi": "10.15784/600034", "keywords": "Antarctica; Biota; McMurdo Sound; Oceans; Photo/video; Photo/Video; Southern Ocean", "people": "Marsh, Adam G.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Marine Invertebrates of McMurdo Sound", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600034"}], "date_created": "Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Although the cold ocean ecosystems comprise seventy-two percent of the biosphere on Earth by volume, they remain sparsely inhabited and relatively unexploited, particularly in terms of metazoan phyla. Consequently, the few animals that can exist at this border of intracellular freezing represent ideal systems for exploring genomic-level processes of environmental adaptations. Understanding life at a margin of the biosphere is likely to convey significant insights into the essential genomic processes necessary for survival under intense selection pressures. This study of adaptive mechanisms in genomic networks focuses on an experimental system that faces a formidable challenge for viability at low water temperatures: embryonic development at sea water temperatures of -1.8 o C in two Antarctic echinoderms, the sea star Odontaster validus and the sea urchin Sterechinus neumayeri. The project strategy will quantify temperature effects on gene expression and protein turnover networks during early development using a Bayesian network analysis to identify clusters of genes and proteins whose expression levels are associated in fixed, synergistic interactions. Ultimately, there is a simple question to be addressed: Is it more or less difficult (complex) for an embryo to develop in an extreme environment? To answer this question, the research plan will decipher network topologies and subnet structuring to uncover gene connectivity patterns associated with embryo development in this polar environment. This is the new area of Environmental Genomics that the PI will explore by expanding his research experience into computational network analyses. Overall, there is a significant need for integrative biologists in the future development of environmental sciences, particularly for the application of genomic-scale technologies to answer ecological-scale questions. The educational goals of this CAREER proposal are focused at two levels in terms of interesting young students in the developing field of environmental genomics: 1) increasing the racial diversity of the scientists attracted to environmental research, and 2) increasing the awareness of career opportunities within environmental research.\u003cbr/\u003eThese educational objectives are incorporated into the research plan to engage students with the excitement of working in an extreme environment such as Antarctica and to interest them in the insights that genome-level research can reveal about how organisms are adapted to specific habitats. Working in a remote, extreme environment such as Antarctica is always a challenge. However, the adventurous nature of the work can be utilized to establish educational and outreach components of high interest to both undergraduate students and the public in general. The proposed plan will bring the experience of working in Antarctica to a larger audience through several means. These include the following: the project theme of environmental genomics will be incorporated into a new Bioinformatics curriculum currently being developed at the University of Delaware; an intern program will be implemented to involved minority undergraduate students in summer research in the United States and then to bring the students to Antarctica to participate in the research; and a K-12 education program will bring the excitement of working in Antarctica to the classrooms of thousands of children (U.S. and international) through a program produced with the Marine Science Public Education Office at the University of Delaware.", "east": 167.0, "geometry": "POINT(165 -77.5)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "FIELD SURVEYS", "locations": null, "north": -77.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Marsh, Adam G.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -78.0, "title": "CAREER: Genomic Networks for Cold-Adaptation in Embryos of Polar Marine Invertebrates", "uid": "p0000240", "west": 163.0}, {"awards": "0540915 Scambos, Ted", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-57.9857 -48.444,-55.95557 -48.444,-53.92544 -48.444,-51.89531 -48.444,-49.86518 -48.444,-47.83505 -48.444,-45.80492 -48.444,-43.77479 -48.444,-41.74466 -48.444,-39.71453 -48.444,-37.6844 -48.444,-37.6844 -50.12802,-37.6844 -51.81204,-37.6844 -53.49606,-37.6844 -55.18008,-37.6844 -56.8641,-37.6844 -58.54812,-37.6844 -60.23214,-37.6844 -61.91616,-37.6844 -63.60018,-37.6844 -65.2842,-39.71453 -65.2842,-41.74466 -65.2842,-43.77479 -65.2842,-45.80492 -65.2842,-47.83505 -65.2842,-49.86518 -65.2842,-51.89531 -65.2842,-53.92544 -65.2842,-55.95557 -65.2842,-57.9857 -65.2842,-57.9857 -63.60018,-57.9857 -61.91616,-57.9857 -60.23214,-57.9857 -58.54812,-57.9857 -56.8641,-57.9857 -55.18008,-57.9857 -53.49606,-57.9857 -51.81204,-57.9857 -50.12802,-57.9857 -48.444))", "dataset_titles": "Atlas of the Cryosphere - View dynamic maps of snow, sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, and more.; Climate, Drift, and Image Data from Antarctic Icebergs A22A and UK211, 2006-2007; MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA)", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "000190", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NSIDC", "science_program": null, "title": "MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA)", "url": "http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0280.html"}, {"dataset_uid": "609466", "doi": "10.7265/N5N014GW", "keywords": "Ablation; Atmosphere; Glaciology; GPS; Meteorology; Oceans; Photo/video; Photo/Video; Sea Ice; Southern Ocean; Temperature", "people": "Thom, Jonathan; Bohlander, Jennifer; Scambos, Ted; Yermolin, Yevgeny; Bauer, Rob", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Climate, Drift, and Image Data from Antarctic Icebergs A22A and UK211, 2006-2007", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609466"}, {"dataset_uid": "000189", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NSIDC", "science_program": null, "title": "Atlas of the Cryosphere - View dynamic maps of snow, sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, and more.", "url": "http://nsidc.org/MMS/atlas/cryosphere_atlas_north.html"}], "date_created": "Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a small grant for exploratory research to study the processes that contribute to the melting and break-up of tabular polar icebergs as they drift north. This work will enable the participation of a group of U.S. scientists in this international project which is collaborative with the Instituto Antartico Argentino. The field team will place weather instruments, firn sensors, and a video camera on the iceberg to measure the processes that affect it as it drifts north. In contrast to icebergs in other sectors of Antarctica, icebergs in the northwestern Weddell Sea drift northward along relatively predictable paths, and reach climate and ocean conditions that lead to break-up within a few years. The timing of this study is critical due to the anticipated presence of iceberg A43A, which broke off the Ronne Ice Shelf in February 2000 and which is expected to be accessible from Marambio Station in early 2006. It has recently been recognized that the end stages of break-up of these icebergs can imitate the rapid disintegrations due to melt ponding and surface fracturing observed for the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves. However, in some cases, basal melting may play a significant role in shelf break-up. Resolving the processes (surface ponding/ fracturing versus basal melt) and observing other processes of iceberg drift and break up in-situ are of high scientific interest. An understanding of the mechanisms that lead to the distintegration of icebergs as they drift north may enable scientists to use icebergs as proxies for understanding the processes that could cause ice shelves to disintegrate in a warming climate. A broader impact would thus be an ability to predict ice shelf disintegration in a warming world. Glacier mass balance and ice shelf stability are of critical importance to sea level change, which also has broader societal relevance.", "east": -37.6844, "geometry": "POINT(-47.83505 -56.8641)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e ICE AUGERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e SNOW DENSITY CUTTER; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e SPECTROMETERS/RADIOMETERS \u003e IMAGING SPECTROMETERS/RADIOMETERS \u003e MODIS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e CAMERAS \u003e CAMERAS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e RECORDERS/LOGGERS \u003e MMS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e TEMPERATURE/HUMIDITY SENSORS \u003e THERMOMETERS \u003e THERMOMETERS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Air Temperature; Weddell Sea; Edge-Wasting; Ice Shelf Meltwater; TERRA; Antarctic; GPS; Iceberg; Ice Breakup; South Atlantic Ocean; AQUA; Tabular; Photo; Not provided; Icetrek; HELICOPTER; Antarctica", "locations": "Antarctic; Weddell Sea; Antarctica; South Atlantic Ocean", "north": -48.444, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Scambos, Ted; Bohlander, Jennifer; Bauer, Rob; Yermolin, Yevgeny; Thom, Jonathan", "platforms": "AIR-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e ROTORCRAFT/HELICOPTER \u003e HELICOPTER; Not provided; SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES \u003e AQUA; SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES \u003e TERRA; SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e NAVIGATION SATELLITES \u003e GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM (GPS) \u003e GPS", "repo": "NSIDC", "repositories": "NSIDC; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -65.2842, "title": "Investigating Iceberg Evolution During Drift and Break-Up: A Proxy for Climate-Related Changes in Antarctic Ice Shelves", "uid": "p0000003", "west": -57.9857}, {"awards": "9615554 Fitzpatrick, Joan", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Digital Images of Thin Sections from Siple Dome; Digital Imaging for Siple Dome Ice Core Analysis, Antarctica", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "609127", "doi": "10.7265/N59Z92T4", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Photo/video; Photo/Video; Siple Dome; Siple Dome Ice Core; WAISCORES", "people": "Fitzpatrick, Joan", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "Siple Dome Ice Core", "title": "Digital Images of Thin Sections from Siple Dome", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609127"}, {"dataset_uid": "609413", "doi": "10.7265/N5XG9P2G", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Photo/video; Photo/Video; Siple Dome; Siple Dome Ice Core", "people": "Fitzpatrick, Joan; Alley, Richard; Spencer, Matthew", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "Siple Dome Ice Core", "title": "Digital Imaging for Siple Dome Ice Core Analysis, Antarctica", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609413"}], "date_created": "Wed, 14 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award is for support for two years to develop the technology and methodology for digitizing the photographs and analyzing the thin sections from ice cores. In addition, the application of digital technology for whole-core stratigraphy, using digital photography, image enhancement and image processing will be investigated. The thin section analysis will be piloted with samples already in hand from the Taylor Dome ice core. If successful, these techniques will be applied to samples from the Siple Dome ice core, in cooperation with Principal Investigators already funded to retrieve and examine these sections. The original digital images with all original data annotation files will be distributed to Siple Dome principal investigators for their use in the interpretation of their own data. All software and hardware acquired for this project will become part of the permanent equipment inventory at the U.S. National Ice Core Laboratory and will be available for use by clients at the facility.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e CAMERAS \u003e CAMERAS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciology; Ice Sheet; Siple; Ice Core; Stratigraphy; GROUND STATIONS; Siple Dome; WAISCORES; Trapped Air Bubbles; Photo; Snow; Density; Volcanic Deposits; Not provided; Ice Core Data; GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; Siple Coast; Chemical Composition", "locations": "Siple Dome; Antarctica; Siple; Siple Coast", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Fitzpatrick, Joan; Alley, Richard; Spencer, Matthew", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND STATIONS; Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": "Siple Dome Ice Core", "south": null, "title": "Digital Imaging for Ice Core Analysis", "uid": "p0000011", "west": null}]
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Project Title/Abstract/Map | NSF Award(s) | Date Created | PIs / Scientists | Dataset Links and Repositories | Abstract | Bounds Geometry | Geometry | Selected | Visible | |||||||||
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Move, Adapt, or Change: Examining the Adaptive Capacity of a Southern Ocean Apex Predator, the Leopard Seal
|
2146068 |
2022-09-12 | Kienle, Sarah; Trumble, Stephen J; Bonin, Carolina | No dataset link provided | The leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx) is an enigmatic apex predator in the rapidly changing Southern Ocean. As top predators, leopard seals play a disproportionately large role in ecosystem functioning and act as sentinel species that can track habitat changes. How leopard seals respond to a warming environment depends on their adaptive capacity, that is a species’ ability to cope with environmental change. However, leopard seals are one of the least studied apex predators on Earth, hindering our ability to predict how the species is responding to polar environmental changes. Investigating the adaptability of Antarctic biota in a changing system aligns with NSF’s Strategic Vision for Investments in Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research. This research, which is tightly integrated with educational and outreach activities, will increase diversity in STEM and Antarctic science by recruiting students from historically underrepresented groups in STEM and providing training, mentoring, and educational opportunities at an emerging Hispanic Serving Institution and a Historically Black Colleges and Universities campus. This project will improve STEM education and science literacy via museum collaborations, creation of informational videos and original artwork depicting the research. The proposal supports data and sample reuse in polar research and long-term reuse of scientific data, thereby maximizing NSF’s investment in previous field research and reducing operational costs. The researchers will investigate leopard seals adaptive capacity to the warming Southern Ocean by quantifying their ability to move (dispersal ability), adapt (genetic diversity), and change (plasticity). Aim 1 of the research will determine leopard seals’ dispersal ability by assessing their distribution and movement patterns. Aim 2 will quantify genetic diversity by analyzing genetic variability and population structure and Aim 3 will examine phenotypic plasticity by evaluating changes in their ecological niche and physiological responses. The international, multidisciplinary team will analyze existing data (e.g., photographs, census data, life history data, tissue samples, body morphometrics) collected from leopard seals across the Southern Ocean over the last decade. Additionally, land- and ship-based field efforts will generate comparable data from unsampled regions in the Southern Ocean. The research project will analyze these historical and contemporary datasets to evaluate the adaptive capacity of leopard seals against the rapidly warming Southern Ocean. This research is significant because changes in the distribution, genetic diversity, and ecophysiology of leopard seals can dramatically restructure polar and subpolar communities. Further, the research will expand understanding of leopard seals’ ecological role, likely characterizing the species as flexible polar and subpolar predators throughout the Southern Hemisphere. The findings of this research will be relevant for use in ecosystem-based management decisions—including the design of Marine Protected Areas— across three continents. This study will highlight intrinsic traits that determine species’ adaptive capacity, as well as showcase the dynamic links between polar and subpolar ecosystems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | None | None | false | false | |||||||||
Collaborative Research: The Drivers and Role of Immigration in the Dynamics of the Largest Population of Weddell Seals in Antarctica under Changing Conditions
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2147553 2147554 1640481 |
2022-08-07 | Rotella, Jay; Chen, Nancy |
|
Part 1: Non-technical description This is a continuation of a long-term population dynamics study (1978-present) using an intensive mark-recapture tagging of Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. Past work has become a global model for population studies of large animals. Results have documented strong annual variation in reproduction, abundance, and population composition. This program will add components to evaluate the demographic role of immigrant mothers, evaluate possible drivers of annual variation in overall population dynamics, assess genetic differences between immigrant and locally born mothers, and document patterns of gene flow among seal colonies in the Ross Sea region. These new aspects will focus on understanding of population structure, function, and genetics and provide key information for predicting how the seal population will respond to environmental change. The addition of genetic approaches will advance available data for multiple groups in multiple countries working on Weddell Seals. This work includes an early career scientists training program for faculty university graduate and undergraduate students and well as a defined program for data sharing. The research is paired with active education and outreach programs, social media, websites, educational resources, videos and high-profile public lecture activities. The informal science education program will expand on the project’s successful efforts at producing and delivering short-form videos that have been viewed over 1.6 million times to date. In addition, the education program will add new topics such as learning about seals using genomics and how seals respond to a changing world to a multimedia-enhanced electronic book about the project’s long-term research on Weddell seals, which will be freely available to the public early in the project. Part 2: Technical description Reliable predictions are needed for how populations of wild species, especially those at high latitudes, will respond to future environmental conditions. This study will use a strategic extension of the long-term demographic research program that has been conducted annually on the Erebus Bay population of Weddell seals since 1978 to help meet that need. Recent analyses of the study population indicate strong annual variation in reproduction, abundance, and population composition. The number of new immigrant mothers that join the population each year has recently grown such that most new mothers are now immigrants. Despite the growing number of immigrants, the demographic importance and geographic origins of immigrants are unknown. The research will (1) add new information on drivers of annual variation in immigrant numbers, (2) compare and combine information on the vital rates and demographic role of immigrant females and their offspring with that of locally born females, and (3) add genomic analyses that will quantify levels of genetic variation in and gene flow among the study population and other populations in the Ross Sea. The project will continue the long-term monitoring of the population at Erebus Bay and characterize population dynamics and the role of immigration using a combination of mark-recapture analyses, stochastic population modeling, and genomic analyses. The study will continue to provide detailed data on individual seals to other science teams, educate and mentor individuals in the next generation of ecologists, introduce two early-career, female scientists to Antarctic research, and add genomics approaches to the long-term population study of Erebus Bay Weddell seals. The research will be complemented with a robust program of training and an informal science education program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | POLYGON((162 -74.95,162.8 -74.95,163.6 -74.95,164.4 -74.95,165.2 -74.95,166 -74.95,166.8 -74.95,167.6 -74.95,168.4 -74.95,169.2 -74.95,170 -74.95,170 -75.295,170 -75.64,170 -75.985,170 -76.33,170 -76.67500000000001,170 -77.02000000000001,170 -77.36500000000001,170 -77.71000000000001,170 -78.055,170 -78.4,169.2 -78.4,168.4 -78.4,167.6 -78.4,166.8 -78.4,166 -78.4,165.2 -78.4,164.4 -78.4,163.6 -78.4,162.8 -78.4,162 -78.4,162 -78.055,162 -77.71000000000001,162 -77.36500000000001,162 -77.02000000000001,162 -76.67500000000001,162 -76.33,162 -75.985,162 -75.64,162 -75.295,162 -74.95)) | POINT(166 -76.67500000000001) | false | false | |||||||||
The consequences of maternal effects and environmental conditions on offspring success in an Antarctic predator
|
1640481 |
2021-06-24 | Rotella, Jay; Garrott, Robert | The consequences of variation in maternal effects on the ability of offspring to survive, reproduce, and contribute to future generations has rarely been evaluated in polar marine mammals. This is due to the challenges of having adequate data on the survival and reproductive outcomes for numerous offspring born in diverse environmental conditions to mothers with known and diverse sets of traits. This research project will evaluate the survival and reproductive consequences of early-life environmental conditions and variation in offspring traits that are related to maternal attributes (e.g. birth date, birth mass, weaning mass, and swimming behavior) in a population of individually marked Weddell seals in the Ross Sea. Results will allow an evaluation of the importance of different types of individuals to the Weddell Seal's population sustenance and better assessments of factors contributing to the population dynamics in the past and into the future. The project allows for documentation of specific individual seal's unique histories and provisioning of such information to the broader science community that seeks to study these seals, educating graduate and undergraduate ecology students, producing science-outreach videos, and developing a multi-media iBook regarding the project's science activities, goals and outcomes. The research has the broad objective of evaluating the importance of diverse sources of variation in pup characteristics to survival and reproduction. The study will (1) record birth dates, body mass metrics, and time spent in the water for multiple cohorts of pups (born to known-age mothers) in years with different environmental conditions; (2) mark all pups born in the greater Erebus Bay study area and conduct repeated surveys to monitor fates of these pups through the age of first reproduction; and (3) use analyses specifically designed for data on animals that are individually marked and resighted each year to evaluate hypotheses about how variation in birth dates, pup mass, time spent in the water by pups, and environmental conditions relate to variation in early-life survival and recruitment for those pups. The research will also allow the documentation of the population status that will contribute to the unique long-term database for the local population that dates back to 1978. | POLYGON((162 -75,162.8 -75,163.6 -75,164.4 -75,165.2 -75,166 -75,166.8 -75,167.6 -75,168.4 -75,169.2 -75,170 -75,170 -75.38,170 -75.76,170 -76.14,170 -76.52,170 -76.9,170 -77.28,170 -77.66,170 -78.03999999999999,170 -78.42,170 -78.8,169.2 -78.8,168.4 -78.8,167.6 -78.8,166.8 -78.8,166 -78.8,165.2 -78.8,164.4 -78.8,163.6 -78.8,162.8 -78.8,162 -78.8,162 -78.42,162 -78.03999999999999,162 -77.66,162 -77.28,162 -76.9,162 -76.52,162 -76.14,162 -75.76,162 -75.38,162 -75)) | POINT(166 -76.9) | false | false | ||||||||||
CAREER: "The Omnivore's Dilemma": The Effect of Autumn Diet on Winter Physiology and Condition of Juvenile Antarctic Krill
|
1753101 |
2020-08-31 | Bernard, Kim | Antarctic krill are essential in the Southern Ocean as they support vast numbers of marine mammals, seabirds and fishes, some of which feed almost exclusively on krill. Antarctic krill also constitute a target species for industrial fisheries in the Southern Ocean. The success of Antarctic krill populations is largely determined by the ability of their young to survive the long, dark winter, where food is extremely scarce. To survive the long-dark winter, young Antarctic krill must have a high-quality diet in autumn. However, warming in certain parts of Antarctica is changing the dynamics and quality of the polar food web, resulting in a shift in the type of food available to young krill in autumn. It is not yet clear how these dynamic changes are affecting the ability of krill to survive the winter. This project aims to fill an important gap in current knowledge on an understudied stage of the Antarctic krill life cycle, the 1-year old juveniles. The results derived from this work will contribute to the development of improved bioenergetic, population and ecosystem models, and will advance current scientific understanding of this critical Antarctic species. This CAREER project's core education and outreach objectives seek to enhance education and increase diversity within STEM fields. An undergraduate course will be developed that will integrate undergraduate research and writing in way that promotes authentic scientific inquiry and analysis of original research data by the students, and that enhances their communication skills. A graduate course will be developed that will promote students' skills in communicating their own research to a non-scientific audience. Graduate students will be supported through the proposed study and will gain valuable research experience. Traditionally underserved undergraduate students will be recruited to conduct independent research under the umbrella of the larger project. Throughout each field season, the research team will maintain a weekly blog that will include short videos, photographs and text highlighting the research, as well as their experiences living and working in Antarctica. The aim of the blog will be to engage the public and increase awareness and understanding of Antarctic ecosystems and the impact of warming, and of the scientific process of research and discovery. In this 5-year CAREER project, the investigator will use a combination of empirical and theoretical techniques to assess the effects of diet on 1-year old krill in autumn-winter. The research is centered on four hypotheses: (H1) autumn diet affects 1-year old krill physiology and condition at the onset of winter; (H2) autumn diet has an effect on winter physiology and condition of 1-year old krill under variable winter food conditions; (H3) the rate of change in physiology and condition of 1-year old krill from autumn to winter is dependent on autumn diet; and (H4) the winter energy budget of 1-year old krill will vary between years and will be dependent on autumn diet. Long-term feeding experiments and in situ sampling will be used to measure changes in the physiology and condition of krill in relation to their diet and feeding environment. Empirically-derived data will be used to develop theoretical models of growth rates and energy budgets to determine how diet will influence the overwinter survival of 1-year old krill. The research will be integrated with an education and outreach plan to (1) develop engaging undergraduate and graduate courses, (2) train and develop young scientists for careers in polar research, and (3) engage the public and increase their awareness and understanding. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | POLYGON((-65 -64,-64.7 -64,-64.4 -64,-64.1 -64,-63.8 -64,-63.5 -64,-63.2 -64,-62.9 -64,-62.6 -64,-62.3 -64,-62 -64,-62 -64.1,-62 -64.2,-62 -64.3,-62 -64.4,-62 -64.5,-62 -64.6,-62 -64.7,-62 -64.8,-62 -64.9,-62 -65,-62.3 -65,-62.6 -65,-62.9 -65,-63.2 -65,-63.5 -65,-63.8 -65,-64.1 -65,-64.4 -65,-64.7 -65,-65 -65,-65 -64.9,-65 -64.8,-65 -64.7,-65 -64.6,-65 -64.5,-65 -64.4,-65 -64.3,-65 -64.2,-65 -64.1,-65 -64)) | POINT(-63.5 -64.5) | false | false | ||||||||||
Antarctic Notothenioid Fish Freeze Avoidance and Genome-wide Evolution for Life in the Cold
|
0231006 1142158 |
2020-04-08 | Cheng, Chi-Hing; Devries, Arthur | Antarctic notothenioid fishes exhibit two adaptive traits to survive in frigid temperatures. The first of these is the production of anti-freeze proteins in their blood and tissues. The second is a system-wide ability to perform cellular and physiological functions at extremely cold temperatures.The proposal goals are to show how Antarctic fishes use these characteristics to avoid freezing, and which additional genes are turned on, or suppressed in order for these fishes to maintain normal physiological function in extreme cold temperatures. Progressively colder habitats are encountered in the high latitude McMurdo Sound and Ross Shelf region, along with somewhat milder near?shore water environments in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). By quantifying the extent of ice crystals invading and lodging in the spleen, the percentage of McMurdo Sound fish during austral summer (Oct-Feb) will be compared to the WAP intertidal fish during austral winter (Jul-Sep) to demonstrate their capability and extent of freeze avoidance. Resistance to ice entry in surface epithelia (e.g. skin, gill and intestinal lining) is another expression of the adaptation of these fish to otherwise lethally freezing conditions. The adaptive nature of a uniquely characteristic polar genome will be explored by the study of the transcriptome (the set of expressed RNA transcripts that constitutes the precursor to set of proteins expressed by an entire genome). Three notothenioid species (E.maclovinus, D. Mawsoni and C. aceratus) will be analysed to document evolutionary genetic changes (both gain and loss) shaped by life under extreme chronic cold. A differential gene expression (DGE) study will be carried out on these different species to evaluate evolutionary modification of tissue-wide response to heat challenges. The transcriptomes and other sequencing libraries will contribute to de novo ice-fish genome sequencing efforts. | POLYGON((163 -76.5,163.5 -76.5,164 -76.5,164.5 -76.5,165 -76.5,165.5 -76.5,166 -76.5,166.5 -76.5,167 -76.5,167.5 -76.5,168 -76.5,168 -76.63,168 -76.76,168 -76.89,168 -77.02,168 -77.15,168 -77.28,168 -77.41,168 -77.54,168 -77.67,168 -77.8,167.5 -77.8,167 -77.8,166.5 -77.8,166 -77.8,165.5 -77.8,165 -77.8,164.5 -77.8,164 -77.8,163.5 -77.8,163 -77.8,163 -77.67,163 -77.54,163 -77.41,163 -77.28,163 -77.15,163 -77.02,163 -76.89,163 -76.76,163 -76.63,163 -76.5)) | POINT(165.5 -77.15) | false | false | ||||||||||
Collaborative Research: Pathways of Circumpolar Deep Water to West Antarctica from Profiling Float and Satellite Measurements
|
1341496 |
2019-12-10 | Girton, James; Rynearson, Tatiana |
|
Current oceanographic interest in the interaction of relatively warm water of the Southern Ocean Circumpolar Deep Water ( CDW) as it moves southward to the frigid waters of the Antarctic continental shelves is based on the potential importance of heat transport from the global ocean to the base of continental ice shelves. This is needed to understand the longer term mass balance of the continent, the stability of the vast Antarctic ice sheets and the rate at which sea-level will rise in a warming world. Improved observational knowledge of the mechanisms of how warming CDW moves across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is needed. Understanding this dynamical transport, believed to take place by the eddy flux of time-varying mesoscale circulation features, will improve coupled ocean-atmospheric climate models. The development of the next generation of coupled ocean-ice- climate models help us understand future changes in atmospheric heat fluxes, glacial and sea-ice balance, and changes in the Antarctic ecosystems. A recurring obstacle to our understanding is the lack of data in this distant region. In this project, a number of subsurface profiling EM-APEX floats adapted to operate under sea ice will be launched on up to 4 cruises of opportunity to the Pacific sector during Austral summer. The floats will be launched south of the Polar Front and measure shear, turbulence, temperature, and salinity to 2000m depth for up to 2 year missions while following the CDW layer. | POLYGON((-142 -66,-135.3 -66,-128.6 -66,-121.9 -66,-115.2 -66,-108.5 -66,-101.8 -66,-95.1 -66,-88.4 -66,-81.7 -66,-75 -66,-75 -66.8,-75 -67.6,-75 -68.4,-75 -69.2,-75 -70,-75 -70.8,-75 -71.6,-75 -72.4,-75 -73.2,-75 -74,-81.7 -74,-88.4 -74,-95.1 -74,-101.8 -74,-108.5 -74,-115.2 -74,-121.9 -74,-128.6 -74,-135.3 -74,-142 -74,-142 -73.2,-142 -72.4,-142 -71.6,-142 -70.8,-142 -70,-142 -69.2,-142 -68.4,-142 -67.6,-142 -66.8,-142 -66)) | POINT(-108.5 -70) | false | false | |||||||||
Collaborative Research: Assessing Changing Patterns of Human Activity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys using Digital Photo Archives
|
1443371 |
2019-11-21 | Fountain, Andrew; Howkins, Adrian |
|
Beginning with the discovery of a "curious valley" in 1903 by Captain Scott, the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) in Antarctica have been impacted by humans, although there were only three brief visits prior to 1950. Since the late 1950's, human activity in the MDV has become commonplace in summer, putting pressure on the region's fragile ecosystems through camp construction and inhabitation, cross-valley transport on foot and via vehicles, and scientific research that involves sampling and deployment of instruments. Historical photographs, put alongside information from written documentation, offer an invaluable record of the changing patterns of human activity in the MDV. Photographic images often show the physical extent of field camps and research sites, the activities that were taking place, and the environmental protection measures that were being followed. Historical photographs of the MDV, however, are scattered in different places around the world, often in private collections, and there is a real danger that many of these photos may be lost, along with the information they contain. This project will collect and digitize historical photographs of sites of human activity in the MDV from archives and private collections in the United States, New Zealand, and organize them both chronologically and spatially in a GIS database. Sites of past human activities will be re-photographed to provide comparisons with the present, and re-photography will assist in providing spatial data for historical photographs without obvious location information. The results of this analysis will support effective environmental management into the future. The digital photo archive will be openly available through the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (MCM LTER) website (www.mcmlter.org), where it can be used by scientists, environmental managers, and others interested in the region. The central question of this project can be reformulated as a hypothesis: Despite an overall increase in human activities in the MDV, the spatial range of these activities has become more confined over time as a result of an increased awareness of ecosystem fragility and efforts to manage the region. To address this hypothesis, the project will define the spatial distribution and temporal frequency of human activity in the MDV. Photographs and reports will be collected from archives with polar collections such as the National Archives of New Zealand in Wellington and Christchurch and the Byrd Polar Research Center in Ohio. Private photograph collections will be accessed through personal connections, social media, advertisements in periodicals such as The Polar Times, and other means. Re-photography in the field will follow established techniques and will create benchmarks for future research projects. The spatial data will be stored in an ArcGIS database for analysis and quantification of the human footprint over time in the MDV. The improved understanding of changing patterns of human activity in the MDV provided by this historical photo archive will provide three major contributions: 1) a fundamentally important historic accounting of human activity to support current environmental management of the MDV; 2) defining the location and type of human activity will be of immediate benefit in two important ways: a) places to avoid for scientists interested in sampling pristine landscapes, and, b) targets of opportunity for scientists investigating the long-term environmental legacy of human activity; and 3) this research will make an innovative contribution to knowledge of the environmental history of the MDV. | POLYGON((160.2 -77.1,160.57 -77.1,160.94 -77.1,161.31 -77.1,161.68 -77.1,162.05 -77.1,162.42 -77.1,162.79 -77.1,163.16 -77.1,163.53 -77.1,163.9 -77.1,163.9 -77.196,163.9 -77.292,163.9 -77.388,163.9 -77.484,163.9 -77.58,163.9 -77.676,163.9 -77.772,163.9 -77.868,163.9 -77.964,163.9 -78.06,163.53 -78.06,163.16 -78.06,162.79 -78.06,162.42 -78.06,162.05 -78.06,161.68 -78.06,161.31 -78.06,160.94 -78.06,160.57 -78.06,160.2 -78.06,160.2 -77.964,160.2 -77.868,160.2 -77.772,160.2 -77.676,160.2 -77.58,160.2 -77.484,160.2 -77.388,160.2 -77.292,160.2 -77.196,160.2 -77.1)) | POINT(162.05 -77.58) | false | false | |||||||||
Collaborative Research: High-resolution Reconstruction of Holocene Deglaciation in the Southern Ross Embayment
|
1443248 1443346 |
2019-09-05 | Hall, Brenda; Stone, John | The response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to future climatic changes is recognized as the greatest uncertainty in projections of future sea level. An understanding of past ice fluctuations affords insight into ice-sheet response to climate and sea-level change and thus is critical for improving sea-level predictions. This project will examine deglaciation of the southern Ross Sea over the past few thousand years to document oscillations in Antarctic ice volume during a period of relatively stable climate and sea level. We will help quantify changes in ice volume, improve understanding of the ice dynamics responsible, and examine the implications for future sea-level change. The project will train future scientists through participation of graduate students, as well as undergraduates who will develop research projects in our laboratories. Previous research indicates rapid Ross Sea deglaciation as far south as Beardmore Glacier early in the Holocene epoch (which began approximately 11,700 years before present), followed by more gradual recession. However, deglaciation in the later half of the Holocene remains poorly constrained, with no chronological control on grounding-line migration between Beardmore and Scott Glaciers. Thus, we do not know if mid-Holocene recession drove the grounding line rapidly back to its present position at Scott Glacier, or if the ice sheet withdrew gradually in the absence of significant climate forcing or eustatic sea level change. The latter possibility raises concerns for future stability of the Ross Sea grounding line. To address this question, we will map and date glacial deposits on coastal mountains that constrain the thinning history of Liv and Amundsen Glaciers. By extending our chronology down to the level of floating ice at the mouths of these glaciers, we will date their thinning history from glacial maximum to present, as well as migration of the Ross Sea grounding line southwards along the Transantarctic Mountains. High-resolution dating will come from Beryllium-10 surface-exposure ages of erratics collected along elevation transects, as well as Carbon-14 dates of algae within shorelines from former ice-dammed ponds. Sites have been chosen specifically to allow close comparison of these two dating methods, which will afford constraints on Antarctic Beryllium-10 production rates. | POLYGON((-174 -84.2,-172.4 -84.2,-170.8 -84.2,-169.2 -84.2,-167.6 -84.2,-166 -84.2,-164.4 -84.2,-162.8 -84.2,-161.2 -84.2,-159.6 -84.2,-158 -84.2,-158 -84.36,-158 -84.52,-158 -84.68,-158 -84.84,-158 -85,-158 -85.16,-158 -85.32,-158 -85.48,-158 -85.64,-158 -85.8,-159.6 -85.8,-161.2 -85.8,-162.8 -85.8,-164.4 -85.8,-166 -85.8,-167.6 -85.8,-169.2 -85.8,-170.8 -85.8,-172.4 -85.8,-174 -85.8,-174 -85.64,-174 -85.48,-174 -85.32,-174 -85.16,-174 -85,-174 -84.84,-174 -84.68,-174 -84.52,-174 -84.36,-174 -84.2)) | POINT(-166 -85) | false | false | ||||||||||
RAPID: Collaborative Research: Marine Ecosystem Response to the Larsen C Ice-Shelf Breakout: "Time zero"
|
1822256 1822289 |
2019-05-15 | Vernet, Maria; Smith, Craig |
|
Marine ecosystems under large ice shelves are thought to contain sparse, low-diversity plankton and seafloor communities due the low supply of food from productive sunlight waters. Past studies have shown sub-ice shelf ecosystems to change in response to altered oceanographic processes resulting from ice-shelve retreat. However, information on community changes and ecosystem structure under ice shelves are limited because sub-ice-shelf ecosystems have either been sampled many years after ice-shelf breakout, or have been sampled through small boreholes, yielding extremely limited spatial information. The recent breakout of the A-68 iceberg from the Larsen C ice shelf in the western Weddell Sea provides an opportunity to use a ship-based study to evaluate benthic communities and water column characteristics in an area recently vacated by a large overlying ice shelf. The opportunity will allow spatial assessments at the time of transition from an under ice-shelf environment to one initially exposed to conditions more typical of a coastal Antarctic marine setting. This RAPID project will help determine the state of a coastal Antarctic ecosystem newly exposed from ice-shelf cover and will aid in understanding of rates of community change during transition. The project will conduct a 10-day field program, allowing contrasts to be made of phytoplankton and seafloor megafaunal communities in areas recently exposed by ice-shelf loss to areas exposed for many decades. The project will be undertaken in a collaborative manner with the South Korean Antarctic Agency, KOPRI, by participating in a cruise in March/May 2018. Combining new information in the area of Larsen C with existing observations after the Larsen A and B ice shelf breakups further to the north, the project is expected to generate a dataset that can elucidate fundamental processes of planktonic and benthic community development in transition from food-poor to food-rich ecosystems. The project will provide field experience to two graduate students, a post-doctoral associate and an undergraduate student. Material from the project will be incorporated into graduate courses and the project will communicate daily work and unfolding events through social media and blogs while they explore this area of the world that is largely underexplored. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | POLYGON((-59.5 -62,-59.05 -62,-58.6 -62,-58.15 -62,-57.7 -62,-57.25 -62,-56.8 -62,-56.35 -62,-55.9 -62,-55.45 -62,-55 -62,-55 -62.27,-55 -62.54,-55 -62.81,-55 -63.08,-55 -63.35,-55 -63.62,-55 -63.89,-55 -64.16,-55 -64.43,-55 -64.7,-55.45 -64.7,-55.9 -64.7,-56.35 -64.7,-56.8 -64.7,-57.25 -64.7,-57.7 -64.7,-58.15 -64.7,-58.6 -64.7,-59.05 -64.7,-59.5 -64.7,-59.5 -64.43,-59.5 -64.16,-59.5 -63.89,-59.5 -63.62,-59.5 -63.35,-59.5 -63.08,-59.5 -62.81,-59.5 -62.54,-59.5 -62.27,-59.5 -62)) | POINT(-57.25 -63.35) | false | false | |||||||||
Assembling and Mining the Genomes of Giant Antarctic Foraminifera
|
1341612 |
2018-11-29 | Bowser, Samuel | Agglutinated foraminifera (forams for short) are early-evolving, single-celled organisms. These "living fossils" construct protective shells using sediment grains held together by adhesive substances that they secrete. During shell construction, agglutinated forams display amazing properties of selection - for example, some species build their shells of clear quartz grains, while other species use only grains of a specific size. Understanding how these single cells assemble complex structures may contribute to nanotechnology by enabling people to use forams as "cellular machines" to aid in the construction of nano-devices. This project will analyze the genomes of at least six key foram species, and then "mine" these genomes for technologically useful products and processes. The project will focus initially on the adhesive materials forams secrete, which may have wide application in biomedicine and biotechnology. Furthermore, the work will further develop a molecular toolkit which could open up new avenues of research on the physiology, ecology, and population dynamics of this important group of Antarctic organisms. The project will also further the NSF goals of making scientific discoveries available to the general public and of training new generations of scientists. Educational experiences related to the "thrill of scientific exploration and discovery" for students and the general public will be provided through freely-available short films and a traveling art/science exhibition. The project will also provide hands-on research opportunities for undergraduate students. Explorers Cove, situated on the western shore of McMurdo Sound, harbors a unique population of foraminiferan taxa at depths accessible by scuba diving that otherwise are primarily found in the deep sea. The project will use next-generation DNA sequencing and microdissection methods to obtain and analyze nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from crown members of two species each from three distinct, early-evolving foraminiferal groups. It will also use next generation sequencing methods to characterize the in-situ prokaryotic assemblages (microbiomes) of one of these groups and compare them to reference sediment microbiomes. The phyogenomic studies of the targeted Antarctic genera will help fill significant gaps in our current understanding of early foram evolution. Furthermore, comparative genomic analyses of these six species are expected to yield a better understanding of the physiology of single-chambered agglutinated forams, especially the bioadhesive proteins and regulatory factors involved in shell composition and morphogenesis. Additionally, the molecular basis of cold adaptation in forams will be examined, particularly with respect to key proteins. | None | None | false | false | ||||||||||
LTER Palmer, Antarctica (PAL): Land-Shelf-Ocean Connectivity, Ecosystem Resilience and Transformation in a Sea-Ice Influenced Pelagic Ecosystem
|
2023425 1440435 |
2018-05-11 | Ducklow, Hugh; Martinson, Doug; Schofield, Oscar | The Palmer Antarctica LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) site has been in operation since 1990. The goal of all the LTER sites is to conduct policy-relevant research on ecological questions that require tens of years of data, and cover large geographical areas. For the Palmer Antarctica LTER, the questions are centered around how the marine ecosystem west of the Antarctica peninsula is responding to a climate that is changing as rapidly as any place on the Earth. For example, satellite observations over the past 35 years indicate the average duration of sea ice cover is now ~90 days (3 months!) shorter than it was. The extended period of open water has implications for many aspects of ecosystem research, with the concurrent decrease of Adèlie penguins within this region regularly cited as an exemplar of climate change impacts in Antarctica. Cutting edge technologies such as autonomous underwater (and possibly airborne) vehicles, seafloor moorings, and numerical modeling, coupled with annual oceanographic cruises, and weekly environmental sampling, enables the Palmer Antarctica LTER to expand and bridge the time and space scales needed to assess climatic impacts. This award includes for the first time study of the roles of whales as major predators in the seasonal sea ice zone ecosystem. The team will also focus on submarine canyons, special regions of enhanced biological activity, along the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). The current award's overarching research question is: How do seasonality, interannual variability, and long term trends in sea ice extent and duration influence the structure and dynamics of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling? Specific foci within the broad question include: 1. Long-term change and ecosystem transitions. What is the sensitivity or resilience of the ecosystem to external perturbations as a function of the ecosystem state? 2. Lateral connectivity and vertical stratification. What are the effects of lateral transports of freshwater, heat and nutrients on local ocean stratification and productivity and how do they drive changes in the ecosystem? 3. Top-down controls and shifting baselines. How is the ecosystem responding to the cessation of whaling and subsequent long-term recovery of whale stocks? 4. Foodweb structure and biogeochemical processes. How do temporal and spatial variations in foodweb structure influence carbon and nutrient cycling, export, and storage? The broader impacts of the award leverage local educational partnerships including the Sandwich, MA STEM Academy, the New England Aquarium, and the NSF funded Polar Learning and Responding (PoLAR) Climate Change Education Partnership at Columbia's Earth Institute to build new synergies between Arctic and Antarctic, marine and terrestrial scientists and students, governments and NGOs. The Palmer Antarctic LTER will also conduct appropriate cross LTER site comparisons, and serve as a leader in information management to enable knowledge-building within and beyond the Antarctic, oceanographic, and LTER communities. | POLYGON((-80 -63,-78.3 -63,-76.6 -63,-74.9 -63,-73.2 -63,-71.5 -63,-69.8 -63,-68.1 -63,-66.4 -63,-64.7 -63,-63 -63,-63 -63.8,-63 -64.6,-63 -65.4,-63 -66.2,-63 -67,-63 -67.8,-63 -68.6,-63 -69.4,-63 -70.2,-63 -71,-64.7 -71,-66.4 -71,-68.1 -71,-69.8 -71,-71.5 -71,-73.2 -71,-74.9 -71,-76.6 -71,-78.3 -71,-80 -71,-80 -70.2,-80 -69.4,-80 -68.6,-80 -67.8,-80 -67,-80 -66.2,-80 -65.4,-80 -64.6,-80 -63.8,-80 -63)) | POINT(-71.5 -67) | false | false | ||||||||||
EAGER: A Multi-decadal Record of Antarctic Benthos: Image Analysis to Maximize Data Utilization
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1355533 |
2016-05-31 | Dayton, Paul |
|
Antarctic benthic communities are characterized by many species of sponges (Phylum Porifera), long thought to exhibit extremely slow demographic patterns of settlement, growth and reproduction. This project will analyze many hundreds of diver and remotely operated underwater vehicle photographs documenting a unique, episodic settlement event that occurred between 2000 and 2010 in McMurdo Sound that challenges this paradigm of slow growth. Artificial structures were placed on the seafloor between 1967 and 1974 at several sites, but no sponges were observed to settle on these structures until 2004. By 2010 some 40 species of sponges had settled and grown to be surprisingly large. Given the paradigm of slow settlement and growth supported by the long observation period (37 years, 1967-2004), this extraordinary large-scale settlement and rapid growth over just a 6-year time span is astonishing. This project utilizes image processing software (ImageJ) to obtain metrics (linear dimensions to estimate size, frequency, percent cover) for sponges and other fauna visible in the photographs. It uses R to conduct multidimensional scaling to ordinate community data and ANOSIM to test for differences of community data among sites and times and structures. It will also use SIMPER and ranked species abundances to discriminate species responsible for any differences. This work focuses on Antarctic sponges, but the observations of massive episodic recruitment and growth are important to understanding seafloor communities worldwide. Ecosystems are composed of populations, and populations are ecologically described by their distribution and abundance. A little appreciated fact is that sponges often dominate marine communities, but because sponges are so hard to study, most workers focus on other groups such as corals, kelps, or bivalves. Because most sponges settle and grow slowly their life history is virtually unstudied. The assumption of relative stasis of the Antarctic seafloor community is common, and this project will shatter this paradigm by documenting a dramatic episodic event. Finally, the project takes advantage of old transects from the 1960s and 1970s and compares them with extensive 2010 surveys of the same habitats and sometimes the same intact transect lines, offering a long-term perspective of community change. The investigators will publish these results in peer-reviewed journals, give presentations to the general public and will involve students from local outreach programs, high schools, and undergraduates at UCSD to help with the analysis. | POLYGON((163 -78,163.4 -78,163.8 -78,164.2 -78,164.6 -78,165 -78,165.4 -78,165.8 -78,166.2 -78,166.6 -78,167 -78,167 -78.05,167 -78.1,167 -78.15,167 -78.2,167 -78.25,167 -78.3,167 -78.35,167 -78.4,167 -78.45,167 -78.5,166.6 -78.5,166.2 -78.5,165.8 -78.5,165.4 -78.5,165 -78.5,164.6 -78.5,164.2 -78.5,163.8 -78.5,163.4 -78.5,163 -78.5,163 -78.45,163 -78.4,163 -78.35,163 -78.3,163 -78.25,163 -78.2,163 -78.15,163 -78.1,163 -78.05,163 -78)) | POINT(165 -78.25) | false | false | |||||||||
The Demographic Consequences of Environmental Variability and Individual Heterogeneity in Life-history Tactics of a Long-lived Antarctic Marine Predator
|
1141326 |
2016-02-08 | Rotella, Jay; Garrott, Robert |
|
Abstract The Erebus Bay population of Weddell seals in Antarctica?s Ross Sea is the most southerly breeding population of mammal in the world, closely associated with persistent shore-fast ice, and one that has been intensively studied since 1968. The resulting long-term database, which includes data for 20,586 marked individuals, contains detailed population information that provides an excellent opportunity to study linkages between environmental conditions and demographic processes in the Antarctic. The population?s location is of special interest as the Ross Sea is one of the most productive areas of the Southern Ocean, one of the few pristine marine environments remaining on the planet, and, in contrast to the Antarctic Peninsula and Arctic, is undergoing a gradual lengthening of the sea-ice season. The work to be continued here capitalizes on (1) long-term data for individual seals and their polar environment; (2) experience collecting and analyzing data from the extensive study population; and (3) recent statistical advances in hierarchical modeling that allow for rigorous treatment of individual heterogeneity (in mark-recapture and body mass data) and inclusion of diverse covariates hypothesized to explain variation in fitness components. Covariates to be considered include traits of individuals and their mothers and environmental conditions throughout life. The study will continue to (1) provide detailed data on known-age individuals to other science projects and (2) educate and mentor the next generation of ecologists through academic and professional training and research experiences. | POLYGON((163.1 -70.3,163.59 -70.3,164.08 -70.3,164.57 -70.3,165.06 -70.3,165.55 -70.3,166.04 -70.3,166.53 -70.3,167.02 -70.3,167.51 -70.3,168 -70.3,168 -70.98,168 -71.66,168 -72.34,168 -73.02,168 -73.7,168 -74.38,168 -75.06,168 -75.74,168 -76.42,168 -77.1,167.51 -77.1,167.02 -77.1,166.53 -77.1,166.04 -77.1,165.55 -77.1,165.06 -77.1,164.57 -77.1,164.08 -77.1,163.59 -77.1,163.1 -77.1,163.1 -76.42,163.1 -75.74,163.1 -75.06,163.1 -74.38,163.1 -73.7,163.1 -73.02,163.1 -72.34,163.1 -71.66,163.1 -70.98,163.1 -70.3)) | POINT(165.55 -73.7) | false | false | |||||||||
Collaborative Research: Hunting in Darkness: Behavioral and Energetic Strategies of Weddell Seals in Winter
|
0739390 |
2014-01-17 | Davis, Randall | No dataset link provided | Intellectual Merit: Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) locate and capture sparsely distributed and mobile prey under shore-fast ice throughout the year, including the austral winter when ambient light levels are very low and access to breathing holes is highly limited. This is one of the most challenging environments occupied by an aquatic mammalian predator, and it presents unique opportunities to test hypotheses concerning: 1) behavioral strategies and energetic costs for foraging and 2) sensory modalities used for prey capture under sea ice. To accomplish these objectives, we will attach digital video and data recorders to the backs of free-ranging Weddell seals during the autumn, winter and early spring. These instruments simultaneously record video of prey pursuit and capture and three-dimensional movements, swimming performance, ambient light level and other environmental variables. Energetic costs for entire dives and portions of dives will be estimated from stroking effort and our published relationship between swimming performance and energetics for Weddell seals. The energetic cost of different dive types will be evaluated for strategies that maximize foraging efficiency, range (distance traveled), and duration of submergence. The proposed study will provide a more thorough understanding of the role of vision and changing light conditions in foraging behavior, sensory ecology, energetics and habitat use of Weddell seals and the distribution of encountered prey. It also will provide new insights into survival strategies that allow Weddell seals to inhabit the Antarctic coastal marine ecosystem throughout the year. <br/><br/>Broader Impacts: The proposed study will train two graduate students and a Post-doctoral Fellow. Outreach activities will include interviews, written material and photographs provided to print and electronic media, project web sites, high school email exchanges from McMurdo Station, hosting visiting artists at our field camp, and public lectures. We will provide a weekly summary of our research findings to teachers and students in elementary school programs through our websites, one of which received an educational award. Our previous projects have attracted an extraordinary amount of press coverage that effectively brings scientific research to the public. This coverage and the video images generated by our work excite the imagination and help instill an interest in science and wildlife conservation in children and adults. | POLYGON((166.08823 -77.545,166.177124 -77.545,166.266018 -77.545,166.354912 -77.545,166.443806 -77.545,166.5327 -77.545,166.621594 -77.545,166.710488 -77.545,166.799382 -77.545,166.888276 -77.545,166.97717 -77.545,166.97717 -77.57736,166.97717 -77.60972,166.97717 -77.64208,166.97717 -77.67444,166.97717 -77.7068,166.97717 -77.73916,166.97717 -77.77152,166.97717 -77.80388,166.97717 -77.83624,166.97717 -77.8686,166.888276 -77.8686,166.799382 -77.8686,166.710488 -77.8686,166.621594 -77.8686,166.5327 -77.8686,166.443806 -77.8686,166.354912 -77.8686,166.266018 -77.8686,166.177124 -77.8686,166.08823 -77.8686,166.08823 -77.83624,166.08823 -77.80388,166.08823 -77.77152,166.08823 -77.73916,166.08823 -77.7068,166.08823 -77.67444,166.08823 -77.64208,166.08823 -77.60972,166.08823 -77.57736,166.08823 -77.545)) | POINT(166.5327 -77.7068) | false | false | |||||||||
Collaborative Research: Aging in Weddell Seals: Proximate Mechanisms of Age-Related Changes in Adaptations to Breath-Hold Hunting in an Extreme Environment
|
0649609 |
2010-08-04 | Horning, Markus |
|
The primary objectives of this research are to investigate the proximate effects of aging on diving capability in the Weddell Seal and to describe mechanisms by which aging may influence foraging ecology, through physiology and behavior. This model pinniped species has been the focus of three decades of research in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Compared to the knowledge of pinniped diving physiology and ecology during early development and young adulthood, little is known about individuals nearing the upper limit of their normal reproductive age range. Evolutionary aging theories predict that elderly diving seals should exhibit senescence. This should be exacerbated by surges in the generation of oxygen free radicals via hypoxia-reoxygenation during breath-hold diving and hunting, which are implicated in age-related damage to cellular mitochondria. Surprisingly, limited observations of non-threatened pinniped populations indicate that senescence does not occur to a level where reproductive output is affected. The ability of pinnipeds to avoid apparent senescence raises two major questions: what specific physiological and morphological changes occur with advancing age in pinnipeds and what subtle adjustments are made by these animals to cope with such changes? This investigation will focus on specific, functional physiological and behavioral changes relating to dive capability with advancing age. The investigators will quantify age-related changes in general health and body condition, combined with fine scale assessments of external and internal ability to do work in the form of diving. Specifically, patterns of oxidative status and oxygen use with age will be examined. The effects of age on muscular function, contractile capacity in vascular smooth muscle, and exercise capacity via exercise performance in skeletal muscle will be examined. Data will be compared between Weddell seals in the peak, and near the end, of their reproductive age range. An assessment will be made of the ability to do external work (i.e. diving) as well as muscle functionality (ability to do internal work). The investigators hypothesize that senescence does occur in Weddell seals at the level of small-scale, proximate physiological effects and performance, but that behavioral plasticity allows for a given degree of compensation. Broader impacts include the training of students and outreach activities including interviews and articles written for the popular media. Photographs and project summaries will be available to the interested public on the project website. This study should also establish diving seals as a novel model for the study of cardiovascular and muscular physiology of aging. Research on Weddell seals could validate this model and thus develop a foundation for similar research on other species. Advancement of the understanding of aging by medical science has been impressive in recent years and the development of new models for the study of aging has tremendous potential benefits to society at large | POLYGON((165.975 -77.54,166.0631 -77.54,166.1512 -77.54,166.2393 -77.54,166.3274 -77.54,166.4155 -77.54,166.5036 -77.54,166.5917 -77.54,166.6798 -77.54,166.7679 -77.54,166.856 -77.54,166.856 -77.5709,166.856 -77.6018,166.856 -77.6327,166.856 -77.6636,166.856 -77.6945,166.856 -77.7254,166.856 -77.7563,166.856 -77.7872,166.856 -77.8181,166.856 -77.849,166.7679 -77.849,166.6798 -77.849,166.5917 -77.849,166.5036 -77.849,166.4155 -77.849,166.3274 -77.849,166.2393 -77.849,166.1512 -77.849,166.0631 -77.849,165.975 -77.849,165.975 -77.8181,165.975 -77.7872,165.975 -77.7563,165.975 -77.7254,165.975 -77.6945,165.975 -77.6636,165.975 -77.6327,165.975 -77.6018,165.975 -77.5709,165.975 -77.54)) | POINT(166.4155 -77.6945) | false | false | |||||||||
Research on Ocean-Atmosphere Variability and Ecosystem Response in the Ross Sea (ROAVERRS)
|
9419605 9896356 |
2010-05-04 | Dunbar, Robert |
|
This project is an interdisciplinary study, titled Research on Ocean-Atmosphere Variability and Ecosystem Response in the Ross Sea (ROAVERRS), of atmospheric forcing, ocean hydrography, sea ice dynamics, primary productivity, and pelagic-benthic coupling in the southwestern Ross Sea, Antarctica. The primary goal is to examine how changes in aspects of the polar climate system, in this case wind and temperature, combine to influence marine productivity on a large antarctic continental shelf. In the Ross Sea, katabatic winds and mesocyclones influence the spatial and temporal distribution of sea ice as well as the upper ocean mixed layer depth, and thus control primary production within the sea ice as well as in the open water system. The structure, standing stock and productivity of bottom- dwelling biological communities are also linked to meteorological processes through interseasonal and interannual variations in horizontal and vertical fluxes of organic carbon produced in the upper ocean. Linkages among the atmospheric, oceanic, and biological systems will be investigated during a three-year field study of the southwestern Ross Sea ecosystem. Direct measurements will include regional wind and air temperatures derived from automatic weather stations; ice cover, ice movement, and sea surface temperatures derived from a variety of satellite-based sensors; hydrographic characteristics of the upper ocean and primary productivity in the ice and in the water derived from research cruises and satellite studies; vertical flux of organic material and water movement derived from oceanographic moorings containing sediment traps and current meters, and the abundance, distribution, and respiration rates of biological communities on the sea floor, derived from box cores, benthic photographs and shipboard incubations. Based on archived meteorological data, it is expected that the atmospheric variability during the study period will be such that changes in airflow pat terns and their influence on oceanographic and biological patterns can be monitored, and their direct and indirect linkages that are the focus of the research can be deduced. Results from this study will contribute to our knowledge of atmospheric and oceanic forcing of marine ecosystems, and lead to a better understanding of marine ecosystem response to climatic variations. *** | POLYGON((-180 -43.56493,-144.00001 -43.56493,-108.00002 -43.56493,-72.00003 -43.56493,-36.00004 -43.56493,-0.000049999999987 -43.56493,35.99994 -43.56493,71.99993 -43.56493,107.99992 -43.56493,143.99991 -43.56493,179.9999 -43.56493,179.9999 -47.023783,179.9999 -50.482636,179.9999 -53.941489,179.9999 -57.400342,179.9999 -60.859195,179.9999 -64.318048,179.9999 -67.776901,179.9999 -71.235754,179.9999 -74.694607,179.9999 -78.15346,143.99991 -78.15346,107.99992 -78.15346,71.99993 -78.15346,35.99994 -78.15346,-0.000050000000016 -78.15346,-36.00004 -78.15346,-72.00003 -78.15346,-108.00002 -78.15346,-144.00001 -78.15346,-180 -78.15346,-180 -74.694607,-180 -71.235754,-180 -67.776901,-180 -64.318048,-180 -60.859195,-180 -57.400342,-180 -53.941489,-180 -50.482636,-180 -47.023783,-180 -43.56493)) | POINT(0 -89.999) | false | false | |||||||||
Environmental, Organismal and Evolutionary Physiology of Freeze Avoidance in Antarctic Notothenioid Fishes
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0636696 |
2010-05-04 | Devries, Arthur |
|
Antarctic notothenioid fish evolved antifreeze (AF) proteins that prevent ice crystals that enter their body fluids from growing, and thereby avoid freezing in their icy habitats. However, even in the extreme cold Antarctic marine environment, regional gradations of severity are found. The biological correlate for environmental severity in fish is the endogenous ice load, which likely determines the tolerable limit of environmental severity for notothenioid habitation. The endogenous ice load develops from environmental ice crystals entering through body surfaces and somehow localizing to the spleen. How prone the surface tissues are to ice entry, how ice reaches the spleen, and what the fate of splenic ice is, requires elucidation. Spleen sequestration of ice raises the hypothesis that macrophages may play a role in the translocation and perhaps elimination of AF-bound ice crystals. Antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGP) act in concert with a second, recently discovered antifreeze called antifreeze potentiating protein (AFPP), necessitating an assessment of the contribution of AFPP to freezing avoidance. Recent research suggests that the exocrine pancreas and the anterior stomach, not the liver, synthesize AFGPs and secrete them into the intestine, from where they may be returned to the blood. A GI-to-blood transport is a highly unconventional path for a major plasma protein and also begs the questions, What is the source of blood AFPP?. Why are two distinct AF proteins needed and what is the chronology of their evolution? What genomic changes in the DNA are associated with the development or loss of the antifreeze trait? Experiments described in this proposal address these interrelated questions of environmental, organismal, and evolutionary physiology, and will further our understanding of novel vertebrate physiologies, the limits of environmental adaptation, and climatically driven changes in the genome. The proposed research will (1) determine the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of environmental temperature and iciness in progressively more severe fish habitats in the greater McMurdo Sound area, and in the milder Arthur Harbor at Palmer Station. The splenic ice load in fishes inhabiting these sites will be determined to correlate to environmental severity and habitability. (2) Assess the surface tissue site of ice entry and their relative barrier properties in intact fish and isolated tissues preparations (3) Assess the role of immune cells in the fate of endogenous ice, (4) determine whether the blood AFGPs are from intestinal/rectal uptake, (5) examine the contribution of AFPP to the total blood AF activity (6) evaluate the progression of genomic changes in the AFGP locus across Notothenioidei as modulated by disparate thermal environments, in four selected species through the analyses of large insert DNA BAC clones. The origin and evolution of AFPP will be examined also by analyzing BAC clones encompassing the AFPP genomic locus. The broader impacts of the proposed research include training of graduate and undergraduate students in research approaches ranging from physical field measurements to cutting edge genomics. Undergraduate research projects have lead to co-authored publications and will continue to do so. Outreach includes establishing Wiki websites on topics of Antarctic fish biology and freeze avoidance, providing advisory services to the San Francisco Science Exploratorium, and making BAC libraries available to interested polar biologists. This research theme has repeatedly received national and international science news coverage and will continue to be disseminated to the public in that manner. | POLYGON((-68.0025 -52.7599,-67.07254 -52.7599,-66.14258 -52.7599,-65.21262 -52.7599,-64.28266 -52.7599,-63.3527 -52.7599,-62.42274 -52.7599,-61.49278 -52.7599,-60.56282 -52.7599,-59.63286 -52.7599,-58.7029 -52.7599,-58.7029 -53.98242,-58.7029 -55.20494,-58.7029 -56.42746,-58.7029 -57.64998,-58.7029 -58.8725,-58.7029 -60.09502,-58.7029 -61.31754,-58.7029 -62.54006,-58.7029 -63.76258,-58.7029 -64.9851,-59.63286 -64.9851,-60.56282 -64.9851,-61.49278 -64.9851,-62.42274 -64.9851,-63.3527 -64.9851,-64.28266 -64.9851,-65.21262 -64.9851,-66.14258 -64.9851,-67.07254 -64.9851,-68.0025 -64.9851,-68.0025 -63.76258,-68.0025 -62.54006,-68.0025 -61.31754,-68.0025 -60.09502,-68.0025 -58.8725,-68.0025 -57.64998,-68.0025 -56.42746,-68.0025 -55.20494,-68.0025 -53.98242,-68.0025 -52.7599)) | POINT(-63.3527 -58.8725) | false | false | |||||||||
Collaborative Research: Effects of Oxygen and Temperature on Egg Mass Function of Southern Ocean Marine Minvertebrates
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0551969 |
2010-01-12 | Moran, Amy | No dataset link provided | This project seeks to understand the evolutionary physiology of reproductive strategies in Southern Ocean marine invertebrates. The fauna of the Southern Ocean has evolved under stable, cold temperatures for approximately 14 million years. These conditions have led to the evolution of unusual physiological and biochemical characteristics, many of which may reflect adaptations to relatively low oxygen availability and high larval oxygen demands. The goal of the proposed projects is to understand latitudinal variation in the function of invertebrate egg masses in relation to oxygen availability and temperature. This relationship is critical to larval survival in the low-temperature, high-oxygen conditions found at high latitudes. In particular, the investigators will: (1) use first principles to model the diffusion of oxygen into egg and embryo masses of Antarctic organisms at environmentally relevant temperatures; (2) test model assumptions by measuring the temperature-dependence of embryonic metabolism and oxygen diffusivity through natural and artificial gels; (3) test model predictions by using oxygen microelectrodes to measure oxygen gradients in both artificial and natural egg masses, and by measuring developmental rates of embryos at different positions in masses; and (4) compare the structure and function of egg masses from the Southern Ocean to those from temperate waters. These components of the study constitute an integrated examination of the evolutionary physiology of egg mass structure and function. Studies of masses endemic to polar conditions will increase the understanding of egg mass evolution across equator-to-pole gradients in temperature and across gradients in oxygen partial pressure. The proposal will support graduate students and will involve several undergraduates in research. The PIs will also design and implement units on polar biology for undergraduate classes at their respective institutions. These educational units will focus on the PIs' photographs, video footage, experiments, and data from this project. The PIs will use web-linked video and instructional technologies to design and co-teach a new class on polar ecological physiology, will work with local grade school institutions to involve high school students in research, and will develop high school course modules about polar biology. | None | None | false | false | |||||||||
CAREER: Genomic Networks for Cold-Adaptation in Embryos of Polar Marine Invertebrates
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0238281 |
2008-06-09 | Marsh, Adam G. |
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Although the cold ocean ecosystems comprise seventy-two percent of the biosphere on Earth by volume, they remain sparsely inhabited and relatively unexploited, particularly in terms of metazoan phyla. Consequently, the few animals that can exist at this border of intracellular freezing represent ideal systems for exploring genomic-level processes of environmental adaptations. Understanding life at a margin of the biosphere is likely to convey significant insights into the essential genomic processes necessary for survival under intense selection pressures. This study of adaptive mechanisms in genomic networks focuses on an experimental system that faces a formidable challenge for viability at low water temperatures: embryonic development at sea water temperatures of -1.8 o C in two Antarctic echinoderms, the sea star Odontaster validus and the sea urchin Sterechinus neumayeri. The project strategy will quantify temperature effects on gene expression and protein turnover networks during early development using a Bayesian network analysis to identify clusters of genes and proteins whose expression levels are associated in fixed, synergistic interactions. Ultimately, there is a simple question to be addressed: Is it more or less difficult (complex) for an embryo to develop in an extreme environment? To answer this question, the research plan will decipher network topologies and subnet structuring to uncover gene connectivity patterns associated with embryo development in this polar environment. This is the new area of Environmental Genomics that the PI will explore by expanding his research experience into computational network analyses. Overall, there is a significant need for integrative biologists in the future development of environmental sciences, particularly for the application of genomic-scale technologies to answer ecological-scale questions. The educational goals of this CAREER proposal are focused at two levels in terms of interesting young students in the developing field of environmental genomics: 1) increasing the racial diversity of the scientists attracted to environmental research, and 2) increasing the awareness of career opportunities within environmental research.<br/>These educational objectives are incorporated into the research plan to engage students with the excitement of working in an extreme environment such as Antarctica and to interest them in the insights that genome-level research can reveal about how organisms are adapted to specific habitats. Working in a remote, extreme environment such as Antarctica is always a challenge. However, the adventurous nature of the work can be utilized to establish educational and outreach components of high interest to both undergraduate students and the public in general. The proposed plan will bring the experience of working in Antarctica to a larger audience through several means. These include the following: the project theme of environmental genomics will be incorporated into a new Bioinformatics curriculum currently being developed at the University of Delaware; an intern program will be implemented to involved minority undergraduate students in summer research in the United States and then to bring the students to Antarctica to participate in the research; and a K-12 education program will bring the excitement of working in Antarctica to the classrooms of thousands of children (U.S. and international) through a program produced with the Marine Science Public Education Office at the University of Delaware. | POLYGON((163 -77,163.4 -77,163.8 -77,164.2 -77,164.6 -77,165 -77,165.4 -77,165.8 -77,166.2 -77,166.6 -77,167 -77,167 -77.1,167 -77.2,167 -77.3,167 -77.4,167 -77.5,167 -77.6,167 -77.7,167 -77.8,167 -77.9,167 -78,166.6 -78,166.2 -78,165.8 -78,165.4 -78,165 -78,164.6 -78,164.2 -78,163.8 -78,163.4 -78,163 -78,163 -77.9,163 -77.8,163 -77.7,163 -77.6,163 -77.5,163 -77.4,163 -77.3,163 -77.2,163 -77.1,163 -77)) | POINT(165 -77.5) | false | false | |||||||||
Investigating Iceberg Evolution During Drift and Break-Up: A Proxy for Climate-Related Changes in Antarctic Ice Shelves
|
0540915 |
2007-08-16 | Scambos, Ted; Bohlander, Jennifer; Bauer, Rob; Yermolin, Yevgeny; Thom, Jonathan | This award supports a small grant for exploratory research to study the processes that contribute to the melting and break-up of tabular polar icebergs as they drift north. This work will enable the participation of a group of U.S. scientists in this international project which is collaborative with the Instituto Antartico Argentino. The field team will place weather instruments, firn sensors, and a video camera on the iceberg to measure the processes that affect it as it drifts north. In contrast to icebergs in other sectors of Antarctica, icebergs in the northwestern Weddell Sea drift northward along relatively predictable paths, and reach climate and ocean conditions that lead to break-up within a few years. The timing of this study is critical due to the anticipated presence of iceberg A43A, which broke off the Ronne Ice Shelf in February 2000 and which is expected to be accessible from Marambio Station in early 2006. It has recently been recognized that the end stages of break-up of these icebergs can imitate the rapid disintegrations due to melt ponding and surface fracturing observed for the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves. However, in some cases, basal melting may play a significant role in shelf break-up. Resolving the processes (surface ponding/ fracturing versus basal melt) and observing other processes of iceberg drift and break up in-situ are of high scientific interest. An understanding of the mechanisms that lead to the distintegration of icebergs as they drift north may enable scientists to use icebergs as proxies for understanding the processes that could cause ice shelves to disintegrate in a warming climate. A broader impact would thus be an ability to predict ice shelf disintegration in a warming world. Glacier mass balance and ice shelf stability are of critical importance to sea level change, which also has broader societal relevance. | POLYGON((-57.9857 -48.444,-55.95557 -48.444,-53.92544 -48.444,-51.89531 -48.444,-49.86518 -48.444,-47.83505 -48.444,-45.80492 -48.444,-43.77479 -48.444,-41.74466 -48.444,-39.71453 -48.444,-37.6844 -48.444,-37.6844 -50.12802,-37.6844 -51.81204,-37.6844 -53.49606,-37.6844 -55.18008,-37.6844 -56.8641,-37.6844 -58.54812,-37.6844 -60.23214,-37.6844 -61.91616,-37.6844 -63.60018,-37.6844 -65.2842,-39.71453 -65.2842,-41.74466 -65.2842,-43.77479 -65.2842,-45.80492 -65.2842,-47.83505 -65.2842,-49.86518 -65.2842,-51.89531 -65.2842,-53.92544 -65.2842,-55.95557 -65.2842,-57.9857 -65.2842,-57.9857 -63.60018,-57.9857 -61.91616,-57.9857 -60.23214,-57.9857 -58.54812,-57.9857 -56.8641,-57.9857 -55.18008,-57.9857 -53.49606,-57.9857 -51.81204,-57.9857 -50.12802,-57.9857 -48.444)) | POINT(-47.83505 -56.8641) | false | false | ||||||||||
Digital Imaging for Ice Core Analysis
|
9615554 |
2003-05-14 | Fitzpatrick, Joan; Alley, Richard; Spencer, Matthew |
|
This award is for support for two years to develop the technology and methodology for digitizing the photographs and analyzing the thin sections from ice cores. In addition, the application of digital technology for whole-core stratigraphy, using digital photography, image enhancement and image processing will be investigated. The thin section analysis will be piloted with samples already in hand from the Taylor Dome ice core. If successful, these techniques will be applied to samples from the Siple Dome ice core, in cooperation with Principal Investigators already funded to retrieve and examine these sections. The original digital images with all original data annotation files will be distributed to Siple Dome principal investigators for their use in the interpretation of their own data. All software and hardware acquired for this project will become part of the permanent equipment inventory at the U.S. National Ice Core Laboratory and will be available for use by clients at the facility. | None | None | false | false |