FjordPhyto Citizen Science
We awoke beneath a deep blue Antarctic sky. The sea lay flat and glossy, surrounded by sharp mountain peaks filled with hanging glaciers. Our morning destination was the spectacular Wilhelmina Bay, where we hoped to find whales. We did not have to wait long. Soon the first blows appeared across the calm water: humpback whales. Many seemed sleepy, likely after feeding on krill throughout the night. A mother and calf passed quietly and gracefully close to the ship, their slow movements matching the stillness of the bay.
Then suddenly the calm was broken, a whale breached in the distance, launching its massive body out of the water. Once… twice… again and again. Nearly ten times in a row it repeated the acrobatic display, until another whale on the opposite side of the bay began to imitate the spectacle. For several minutes the bay felt like a grand amphitheatre of breaching giants.
To listen more closely, the engine was stopped and Olivia lowered the hydrophone into the water. Through the hydrophone we could hear distant streams of bubbles produced by whales far away, a few slaps on the surface, and one single unmistakable “blop” a sound humpback whales produce when communicating. Aside from that brief conversation, the whales remained mostly quiet and restful this morning.
With the whales calm and drifting, it was a perfect moment to turn to science. We introduced the FjordPhyto citizen science project about phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are tiny, single-celled organisms that live in the ocean. They're like the grass of the sea, using photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy, and they form the base of the marine food web. Despite their small size, they play a huge role in the health of marine ecosystems and the planet as a whole. heir abundance and diversity can indicate the health of marine ecosystems, making them important for monitoring changes due to climate change and pollution.
Regitze presented the program and explained how we would collect data from the zodiacs. The plan was to measure water clarity with a Secchi disk, take a Lugol-preserved water sample and conduct a 10-minute phytoplankton net tow. Three waves of voyager crew headed out in the zodiacs to collect the data. Back on board, the work continued. The water samples were filtered and the filters carefully preserved for later analysis. Others gathered around the microscopes, exploring the tiny drifting organisms of the Southern Ocean, an entire invisible ecosystem revealed drop by drop.
