Pelagic ecosystems in the waters off East Antarctic (30 o E-150 o E)

• Main Authors: Nicol, S, Raymond, B
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012
• Subjects: Biological Sciences; Ecology; Marine and Estuarine Ecology (incl. Marine Ichthyology); Antarctic; Deacon; East Antarctica; Mackintosh; Major Island; Marr; Nunes; Prydz Bay; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781444347241; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/80291

The pelagic ecosystems of the waters off East Antarcticahave been the subject of considerable study over the last30 years. The BIOMASS surveys in the early 1980sprovided information in several parts of this region (El-Sayed, 1994; Inagake et al ., 1985; Miller, 1985; Miller &Montiero, 1988), a comprehensive set of surveys of theCosmonaut and Cooperation Seas (30 E80 E) wasconducted in the 1980s and 1990s by Russian andUkrainian scientists (Pakhomov, 1993, 1995, 2000;Pakhomov et al ., 2002), multiple Australian surveyswere conducted in the Prydz Bay region in the 1980sand 1990s (Smith et al ., 1984; Hosie, 1994; Nunes-Vaz & Lennon, 1996). More recently, there have beenseveral surveys around the sub-Antarctic islands of theKerguelen Plateau (Blain et al ., 2008) and two largescaleAustralian surveys BROKE from JanuaryMarch1996 (Nicol, 2000) and BROKE-West from JanuaryMarch, 2006 (Nicol & Meiners, 2010) that havetogether surveyed much of the waters off East Antarctica(30 E150 E) south of 62 S. There are also anumber of historical studies against which more recentfindings can be compared (Deacon, 1982; Mackintosh,1972, 1973; Marr, 1962; Mizroch et al ., 1985)as well as some fisheries information (Ichii, 1990)and data collected for the International WhalingCommission (Murase et al ., 2001). A large number ofmore localized studies have also been conducted (e.g.,Boyd et al ., 2000; Law et al ., 2001) and these provideinsights into some of the more detailed biogeochemicaland physical processes that occur along this coastlineand at the major island groups. A review of the pelagicecosystems off East Antarctica with a focus on examiningthe relationships between the large-scale physicaland chemical environment and the biological productivityof the region was published recently (Nicol et al ., 2006) and this paper should be consulted for athorough overview. In this short review we will summarizethe findings of the most recent large-scale surveyoff East Antarctica (BROKE-West, conducted in 2006)and qualitatively synthesize the information from thissurvey with that from the adjacent BROKE surveythat was conducted along similar lines in 1996 (seeFigure 8.1). The results of these surveys will be examinedin the context of information from earlier studies.