CCAMLR

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.

Broad-scale survey of the abundance of colonial breeding penguins requires locating all, or the great majority, of colonies as the first of several survey stages. Given the remoteness of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands, satellites offer obvious potential for such a task in this region. Past evaluations of the utility of satellites for the detection of penguin breeding sites are reviewed. Despite the obvious potential for such use, very few evaluation studies have been undertaken. The studies indicate great potential, but also caution on or allude to the need for further evaluation or consideration with respect to the following issues: spectral response of surrounding material, variability in the spectral response of guano due to environmental features, inadequate or ambiguous signal from guano, and spatial resolution of the technology and penguin breeding sites. Developments in satellite technology since the time of the studies will have alleviated some issues such as spatial resolution. Some directions for further evaluation work, and possible survey design options for addressing deficiencies in current satellite technology, are discussed. Some specifications of current satellite sensors that may be useful for this purpose are given.

WG-EMM is currently investigating the feasibility of undertaking broad-scale surveys of land-based predators in Antarctica. Such surveys are likely to rely heavily on recent technological developments, such as satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which may allow cost-effective survey in large and remote regions. We describe some specifications and assess the advantages and disadvantages of one such UAV, the ‘Aerosonde’, which is manufactured by Aerosonde™ in Melbourne, Australia. The Aerosonde is designed largely for long-distance, high-speed flights with data collection and real-time transmission back to a flight control centre, but could also serve as a platform for aerial photography. Its advantages in this role would be long-distance capability and low noise levels. Its disadvantages include cost, the need for a launching and landing runway, difficulty in operating around mountainous terrain, and likely instability in strong winds.

There are unresolved issues surrounding the use of power analyses for examining the ability of CEMP data to detect change. The effect size that should prompt a response if observed in a parameter and the likely response of parameters such as arrival or fledgling weights are two of these issues. Understanding the source of the variability required to generate ‘noise’ for the power analysis simulations is another and it has major ramifications on power estimates. Increasing the variability associated with power analysis estimates results in a decreased level of power to detect a trend. Similar power analysis results are obtained for a fixed co-efficient of variation of the temporal variability SD in relation to the initial value irrespective of the magnitude of the initial size. This means that power analysis results based on occupied nest counts with increasing levels of temporal variability (% CV) are applicable to other parameters that are suitable for trend detection. The four CEMP parameters considered in this paper have similar power estimates because their estimates of temporal variability are comparable (5.2 – 6.7%). For example, with a 10 year monitoring program it is possible to detect fixed increases or decreases larger than 2% each year with more than 80% power. Increasing the duration of the monitoring program has a positive impact on power estimates. There is very little difference between results generated using an exponential model compared with a linear model for short term monitoring programs of up to 10 years duration.