5 May, 2013 21:48

Finally: the big day. We were dying of curiosity: what is the actual situation in Rijpfjorden? How thick is the ice? How much snow is on the ice? Will there be any ice algae? Is Calanus producing eggs? Today we would get the answers. We went out to our sample station, about 10 km north from our camp. Here a physical and biological observatory (a so called mooring) is placed in the water column measuring temperature, salinity, fluorescence, current speed, sedimentation and particle movement (ADCP) all year round. The first thing we did was to drill a hole in the ice. A 15-25 cm layer of snow covered the ice. The ice was very soft, and indication that spring is in the air, and about 70 cm thick. And to our great joy a layer of ice-algae was growing at the under ice surface! So we are here at the exact right time of the year! We took a number of ice cores and water samples from different depth. These samples will be analysed for chlorophyll and nutrient concentration as well as DNA and taxonomic composition. Back in camp Jozef and Miriam were busy filtering the water. Meanwhile the rest of us went back to take some zooplankton nets to have a look at Calanus. The females look happy and have green guts, an indication that they are feeding, and we incubated 30 of them to measure egg production. So tomorrow we will find out if they are producing eggs.

(MD, JES)

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One Response to 5 May, 2013 21:48

  1. Jozef jr says:

    Experiments in western Svalbard: Status – done.

    Hornsund : 1468 eggs counted; 27 spec. produced eggs
    mean #egss per spec. = 48.9 ;
    sd = 31.4
    Kongsfjorden : 1940 eggs counted ; 28 spec. produced eggs
    mean #egss per spec. = 64.7 ;
    sd = 39.8

    Elisabeth has frozen Calanus and I’m safe and sound at home.

    Good luck with counting.