Well, my research talk to the station went very well last night, and I had another good day of experiments.  Time for your questions —

Students in Ms. Sipe’s 6th grade class at Berkeley Prep asked:

What  are you studying now in Antarctica that you didn’t study the last two times?

Great question!  When I planned this research trip, I expected to study eyes of Antarctic amphipods.  That is what I worked on during my previous Antarctic research.  Amphipods are crustaceans (like crabs and lobsters) and they are very important members of the Antarctic food web, particularly near islands along the Antarctic Peninsula, where Palmer Station is located.  Above are a few pictures of amphipods.  BUT…when I arrived at Palmer Station, it was harder than I expected to collect the type of amphipod I needed for my experiments.  So, I towed a plankton net off the station, and caught several krill.  Krill are SUPER important food for penguins and whales, and the more we know about krill the better we can predict how food webs may change in response to the warming climate.  This particular region, the Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet!!  So, now is a good time to be looking at all parts of the food web here, from the tiny microbes and phytoplankton, through the krill, and penguins and whales.  There are 3 species of krill commonly found in Antarctica, and all are pretty small - above there is a picture of a krill on my thumb!  Krill produce light from light organs or “photophores” on their bellies as a type of camoflauge - this is called bioluminescence.  Above is a picture I took of a light organ from a krill.  The orange circle is a light organ, and a blue color is actually light being produced from another light organ - how cool!!

Catching the krill was probably the best luck I could have had, because as I have conducted more and more experiments looking at how the krill eye works, the more interesting and complex its eyes and vision seem to be.  So, now my experiments are focused on the eyes of “bigeye krill.”  They have a really neat “compound” eye similar to a fly eye, BUT, each krill eye is divided into 2 parts - one part looks up towards the sun and the other part looks down towards the deep ocean!  Using the equipment shown above, I am studying if these 2 parts work differently - do they see different colors?  how quickly do the eyes work?  how much light is needed for them to see?

I am learning something new about vision in these important animals everyday.  When you do science, you need to be very flexible and ready to change plans if an opportunity comes up.  That is what is happening here with my krill studies.