Antarctic species monitoring – macro and micro

When we think about the Antarctic, penguins, seals and whales are the species we often associate with the icy marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

Adélie penguins are recognised as a sentinel species – an organism that is monitored to provide early warning of potential health or environmental harm. Other sentinel species are much smaller and possibly less eye-catching – such as terrestrial mosses and cyanobacteria.

New Zealand scientists monitor species of all sizes to collect baseline and longitudinal data about their distribution, interactions and habitats and to make predictions about responses to future local and global changes.

Monitoring includes a myriad of techniques and lots of technology:

• Census counts of large species like seals and penguins using high-resolution images from helicopters and satellites – including citizen science projects.

• Environmental DNA (eDNA) along with collecting samples of penguin guano and seal urine and scat to study Ross Sea food webs.

• Collecting seal scat to test whether nearby construction activities are causing stress.

• Underwater cameras and hydrophones to watch and listen to animal behaviour under the sea ice.

• Specially engineered drilling equipment to capture fragile layers of platelet sea ice along with the water and living things within the layers.

• Drones equipped with multispectral and hyperspectral sensors to detect terrestrial vegetation. Both types of sensors use image layers/wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum and can see things that human eyes cannot.

• Using PCR to find and identify extremophilic microorganisms that live in the harsh McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Anthony Powell works with Antarctica New Zealand. In this video, he sets up a hydrophone, which he lowers through a hole in the ice, to listen to how seals communicate while underwater.

Questions for discussion

• Why do scientists spend time observing animal species?

• Why is this important?

• What do you think they might learn by listening to the seals’ vocalisations?

Transcript

Anthony Powell

So this is the seal colony at Turtle Rock.

Voiceover

Scientists can use remote sensing and direct observation to monitor seals while they are on the land, but it gets a bit more difficult when they move under the ice shelves. Although they’ve been monitoring Weddell seal colonies at Erebus Bay for decades, there is still a lot to learn about their interactions and behaviour. One monitoring technique uses a hydrophone to listen as the seals call to one another as they try to find a mate while swimming under the ice.

Megan Nicols (offscreen)

There’s a very active seal just in front of your camera there.

Acknowledgements

Anthony Powell, Antarctica New Zealand
Megan Nicols, Antarctica New Zealand

Seal swimming under ice and hydrophone recording, Anthony Powell
Footage of Anthony and Megan working in Antarctica, courtesy of Carol Brieseman and Dianne Christenson
Carol Brieseman and Dianne Christenson visited Antarctica with support from the Antarctica New Zealand Community Engagement Programme