| NSF Org: |
OPP Office of Polar Programs (OPP) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | February 13, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | February 13, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1822256 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Jennifer Burns
OPP Office of Polar Programs (OPP) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | March 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | February 28, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $26,093.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $26,093.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2425 CAMPUS RD SINCLAIR RM 1 HONOLULU HI US 96822-2247 (808)956-7800 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1000 Pope Road Honolulu HI US 96822-2303 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | ANT Organisms & Ecosystems |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.078 |
ABSTRACT
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.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The main goal of this project was to collaborate with Korean scientists aboard the Research Vessel Araon to study the very poorly understood marine ecosystems recently exposed by the breakout of the massive (5800 km2) A-68 Iceberg in the Larsen C region. This involved (1) developing a collaborative research program between scientists from the USA and the Korea Polar Research Institute, (2) interfacing a state-of-the-art seabed imaging system (the Yoyo Camera) from the US Antarctic Program with the RV Araon, and (3) joining, on very short notice, a 35-day research cruise aboard the RV Araon from Lyttleton, New Zealand to the Larsen C ice shelf and the Antarctic Peninsula, and then to Punta Arenas, Chile. The project was very successful in developing a collaborative USA-Korean research program and with interfacing the Yoyo Camera with the RV Araon. Unfortunately, unexpectedly heavy sea ice prevented the RV Araon from reaching the area of the A-68 Iceberg. As a consequence, collaborative oceanographic research activities were concentrated in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region, where seafloor photographic surveys were conducted in rapidly warming fjords in Marion Cove and Maxwell Bay on King George Island. This new set of seafloor surveys will allow direct comparisons of bottom communities in fjords on King George Island, where floating glaciers have warmed dramatically and retreated, to seafloor communities in colder fjords further south along the Antarctic Peninsula, where glacial retreat from warming is much less advanced. This project has also established a long-term international research collaboration between US and South Korean scientists studying the effects of climate warming on Antarctic coastal ecosystems. Finally, the project provided three early-career US scientists with extraordinary Antarctic field experience and international networking.
Last Modified: 07/30/2019
Modified by: Craig R Smith
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