CCAMLR

A suite of CEMP and non-CEMP parameters collected at Admiralty Bay and Cape Shirreff, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica were analysed to assess the characteristics of the individual parameters, and their relationships to krill abundance and ice cover indices for the period 1978-2003. Results of the analyses are presented in a series of 6 Tables, following the outline of a Draft paper by K.Reid for similar analyses at South Georgia. The tabular data include:
1. Table 1. A list of the penguin performance indices collected at the two sites
2. Table 2. Data on annual variability in krill biomass density, annual sea ice cover and the relationship between these two measures for the period 1992-2002.
3. Table 3. Characteristics of the predator performance indices.
4. Table 4. A linear regression of the relationships between predator indices and ice cover
5. Table 5. The relationships between predator indices and krill biomass presented as a linear regression for both Admiralty Bay and Cape Shirreff and as an exponential regression for the longer Admiralty Bay time series data.
6. Table 6. A summary of the R2 values for all indices by seasons and species

Age, growth rate and age composition of icefish catches in subareas 48.3, 48.2, 48.1 were studied for different periods. The analysis of age composition of icefish in subarea 48.3 showed that the catches consisted mainly of individuals of 2-4 age groups, where more than 60% were represented by fish of two contiguous age groups. It was shown that in the 1980s during a number of years the catches were based on fish of two contiguous year classes, strong 1984 year class and middle 1983 year class. These year classes appeared against a background of the intensive icefish fishery, and krill biomass, judging from the catches, was rather low. Possibly, the abundance of one or another icefish year class in subarea 48.3 depends on many factors, among which it it difficult to determine the most important factors now. A comparative analysis of icefish growth in subarea 48.3 based on data collected in different periods of fishery revealed a substantial interannual variability. The comparison of the growth rate of fish caught in 1978 in subareas 48.3 and 48.2 and that of fish caught in 1986 in subareas 48.3 and 48.1 did not reveal any significant differences. The relatively high growth rate of icefish in subareas 48.3 and 48.2 in 1978 compared with 1985 may indicate on the common factors affected the icefish growth in different regions of the South Atlantic in that time.

The 2002-03 breeding season in comparison with 2000-01 at Edmondson Point was characterised by unusual sea ice and weather condition. Strong southerly winds and snow were experienced at the colony during December coinciding with hatching and the guard stage. The sea ice in the Ross Sea was held in by the presence of the large icebergs. This resulted in extensive sea ice lasting into February adjacent to the Edmonson Point colony. These environmental effects were accompanied by changes in CEMP parameters A2, A6, A9. Breeding success was reduced to 0.3 chicks creched per nest with eggs. The mean crèche date was extended by 4 days, the first incubation shift was significantly longer with respect to 2000-01 (19 days compared with 13). We suggest a combination of environmental factors operating at different times throughout the breeding season were responsible for the poor breeding success. These findings highlight the need for collecting environmental data as part of monitoring for CEMP.

Stomach contents (n=43) of Ade lie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) nesting at Edmonson Point (Ross Sea) (74°20'56.7"S, 165°08'10.03"E) were analysed. Gas chromatography revealed concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), including coplanar congeners, at 1.01 ng/g wet wt, pp'DDE at 5.80 ng/g wet wt and and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) at 4.70 ng/g wet wt. Average input of these persistent organic pollutants (POPs) through diet also was evaluated. The following concentration gradient of PCB isomer-specific classes was revealed: hepta-CB ??hexa-CB ??penta-CB. The most abundant congeners were PCB189, PCB134 and PCB151, while PCB126 was the most abundant among coplanar PCBs. Toxic Equivalency Factors (TEFs) were also used to evaluate toxicity. Correlation was found between contamination and penguins’ diet in relation to sex during the mating season, when observations took place. Foraging sites were identified by satellite trackers in two study periods.

The CEMP Standard Method book comprises a ”Protocol for collecting samples for toxicological analyses” (Part IV, Section 5: 1-3), dated August 1997. This procedure describes the methods to collect samples of organisms to be analyzed for ecotoxicology. The aim is to detect toxic persistent organic pollutants (POPs, such as organochlorine compounds), heavy metals and biomarkers in Antarctic organisms. Results can be used both for POP global transport studies and for biomagnification and risk assessment. However, currently, the procedures used to gather samples for analysis involve either sacrificing animals or collecting tissues from dead specimens.
Here, we suggest the use of blood as an alternative (or additional) technique for residue analyses. This methodology is particularly useful where protected/endangered organisms and/or protected/ecological relevant areas have to be investigated. This paper reports the preliminary results obtained by this new sampling and analytical technique and outlines our future work proposals.

The international workshop on understanding living krill for improved management and stock assessment (referred to Krill workshop here after) was held at Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium, Nagoya from 1-4 October 2002. 35 Participants from 5 nations (Japan, USA, Australia, Korea, Germany, and Mexico) attended the meeting.
Following the series of the presentations, an extensive discussion took place regarding to the future research on live krill. Special Volume of the workshop will be published in December 2003.

The CCAMLR Observer Manual details scientific observation guidelines and contains a set of logbook forms with instructions for recording observations. This document proposes some revised versions of the log forms (fish by-catch, krill biological data, conversion factors) and guides in the observer manual which may maximize the opportunity to collect data, and also streamline/prioritize the work/sampling to be completed by the observers.

Fifteen predator performance indices for Antarctic fur seals breeding at two sites in the South Shetland Islands are presented. Five indices were derived from CEMP standard methods C1 (female foraging trip duration) and C2b (pup growth rates). Measures of female foraging trip duration, pup growth rates, adult female survival and natality were made at Seal Island from 1986/87-1994/95. Studies at Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island measured female foraging trip duration, foraging range, diet (3), pup growth rates (3), pup mortality, timing of reproduction, adult female survival and natality, cohort success, pup production, and the change in pup production from 1997/98 through 2002/03. Pup growth rate (C2b) data were recalculated for 1997/98-2001/02 to facilitate comparisons between sites. Long foraging trip durations (7.09d ±0.19), below average frequency of krill in fur seal diet (79.6% ±7.7), above average pup mortality (9.0%), decrease pup production (-12.1%), and below average adult female survival (85.8%) and natality (74.3%) all indicated that 2002/03 was a season of poor reproductive performance for fur seals at Cape Shirreff.

Although world oceans have been warming over the past 50 years, the impact on biotic components is poorly understood because of the difficulty of obtaining long-term data sets on marine organisms. The Southern Ocean plays a critical role on global climate and there is growing evidence of climate warming. We show that air temperatures measured by meteorological stations have steadily increased over the past 50 years in the southern Indian Ocean, the increase starting in mid 1960s and stabilizing in mid 1980s, being particularly important in the in the sub-Antarctic sector. At the same time with a time lag of 2–9 years with temperatures, the population size of most seabirds and seals monitored on several breeding sites have decreased severely, whilst two species have increased at the same time. These changes, together with the indications of a simultaneous decrease in secondary production in sub-Antarctic waters and the reduction of sea-ice extent further south, indicate that a major system shift has occurred in the Indian Ocean part of the Southern Ocean. This shift illustrates the high sensitivity of marine ecosystems, and especially upper trophic level predators, to climate changes.

We used the program MONITOR to conduct a set of power analyses for CEMP indices developed by the US AMLR Program. We consider CEMP indices A2, A3, A5, A6, A7, and A8 for penguins at Admiralty Bay, and indices C1 and C2 for fur seals at Cape Shirreff and Seal Island. Our power analyses describe the likelihood of rejecting null hypotheses stating that the slopes of linear models relating the values of transformed CEMP indices to breeding year are equal to zero when, in fact, these trends actually exist. We estimated the power of rejecting these null hypotheses at three levels of ? (the probability of rejecting the null hypotheses when they were, in fact, true), three periods of monitoring, and 21 levels of annual percent change in the CEMP indices. We conducted a number of “combined analyses” in which observations for different species, sexes, colonies/rookeries, and periods during the breeding chronology were treated as separate “plots” that might be monitored in an attempt to detect some type of overall trend. We displayed the results of our analyses in a tabular format designed to identify general patterns rather than specific outcomes. In general, power to detect change was increased when ? levels, periods of monitoring, and levels of change were increased. We found that many of the CEMP indices considered here are contaminated by so much observation error that there would often be less than a 50:50 chance of detecting an actual trend over a period of 5 years. Nevertheless, detecting trends over a period of 20 years may be feasible for most indices. Detecting trends in indices A8 and C2 may be extremely difficult under any combination of ?, observation period, and level of change, but detecting trends in log-abundance of breeding penguins (one possible transformation of Index A3) will, apparently, be relatively easy . Treating observations for different species, sexes, colonies/rookeries, and periods of the breeding chronology as separate plots both degraded (e.g., combining species for Index A2 and periods of the breeding chronology for Index A5) and enhanced (e.g., combining species for Index A6 and chinstrap penguin colonies for Index A3) the ability to detect real trends. It is difficult, however, to know whether the “combined” approach is warranted because we are uncertain of the degrees to which different species, sexes, colonies, etc. are jointly affected by some overall trend. We caution that our analyses should, at this point, still be considered exploratory since there are underlying questions regarding the appropriate use of MONITOR that we have not been able to resolve.