ABOARD THE RVIB N. B. PALMER, ON THE SOUTHERN OCEAN– After 4 days in transit we arrived at Clarence Island near the South Shetlands. It is too windy to test our new instruments here. So we turn northeast and after 8 more hours we arrive at the C18A iceberg. This large iceberg was located by satellite images. C18A originated from the Ross Sea Ice Shelf half a continent away. Since 2003 it has traveled hundreds of miles around Antarctica. It entered the Weddell Sea 2 years ago, and it is now on its way north.

Chaetoceros neglectus collected near Clarence Island.

At Clarence Island we saw the first phytoplankton bloom of our cruise. Chaetoceros neglectus was the most abundant species. Diatoms are unicellular plants with a silica cell wall that come in many different geometric forms, thickness and sometimes with appendages. The wall has two units called valves that fit together like two halves of a pillbox, the smaller lower valve fitting inside the larger one.

Diatom’s cell wall has 2 halves that fit together like a box. Drawing from Round, Crawford and Mann, The Diatoms, Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Some are round, like in Thalassiosira sp. or Coscinodiscus sp. Others are elongated, like Fragilariopsis sp. Each cell can be seen from the top or the sides, making it sometimes difficult to recognize them. There are lightly silicified species, hard to see at the microscope, like Chaetoceros neglectus. The thickly silicified species are thick, brilliant and easily seen. Many species either central or pennate form chains that look like a necklace, or sometimes a ribbon, with each cell looking like a bead or a scale.

Thalassiosira sp. showing top and bottom valves.

Diatoms with round (group Centrales) and elongated (group Pennales) valves.

Thalassiosira sp. in chain, seen from the side.

Fragilariopsis sp. in chain seen from the side.

Why the diversity of form? Diatoms need to float in the ocean to live close to the surface, where there is light. Inside the cell there is a vacuole (looking almost like a balloon) where they can store chemicals that help them float. Increasing their wall surface also helps in flotation, thus the formation of chains. All plants survive if the grazers do not decimate them. Being large, as in forming part of a long chain, or having spines help them also to avoid grazing. Diatoms are the preferred food of the Antarctic krill, a common crustacean in these waters, and only the very large species can avoid being eaten.

I am sure we will keep seeing many different diatoms in this cruise and we will be taking pictures of them to share. As it is autumn here, many species are starting to become scarce, present special forms, or spores that help them spend the long winter. We are especially interested in seeing if some forms prefer to live close to the iceberg or if they are somehow concentrating a distance way, affected by melting ice.

ABOARD THE RVIB N. B. PALMER, ON THE SOUTHERN OCEAN– Adios Punta Arenas, Chile. Hello Research Vessel and Ice Breaker, Nathaniel B. Palmer (RVIB NBP). We, the crew, support staff and scientists of the NBP Iceberg Cruise III, left port in Punta Arenas on March 6th to begin our 40-day cruise to study the water column around free-floating icebergs. This is our third cruise, after two others on December 2005 and June 2008. We are making our way through the Straits of Magellan, past the Southern tip of Argentina into the Drake Passage, and on into the Weddell Sea where our group in particular will be focusing on the phytoplankton, plants living in the ocean that react to the presence of icebergs.

The RVIB NB Palmer at the dock at Punta Arenas, Chile.

As we sail south we cross different water masses. First, the coast of Argentina with a shallow continental margin, only 50 meters deep east of Tierra del Fuego, with cold sub-Antarctic waters of 8 degrees Celsius or 40 degrees Fahrenheit. A day later we enter into deep waters of several thousand meters, the West Wind Drift that circulates all around Antarctica. We cross the Antarctic Polar Front and in a few hours we find ourselves in cold Antarctic waters, close to freezing temperatures. Continuing on our voyage we cross the Southern Front of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. As we move from water mass to water mass, the ocean continues looking blue to our eyes but the plankton changes.

Picture this: You are on a 4-day road trip (the approximate time that it takes us to reach our iceberg and waters of study from Punta Arenas). You travel through different zones and see different plants and animals during your trip as you travel through coastal foothills, to the valley, and onto the higher mountain alpine zones. The diversity of plants and animals in the ocean goes through similar changes as we go on our 4 day voyage to the Southern Ocean and pass through different water masses, each containing characteristic species.

Dinoflagellates or cells with a cellulose cover, a top and bottom capsule (or theca), and a central groove (or cingulum) with a flagellum are common in oceanic waters.

To study these plankton changes we collect water from the sea water intake on board the ship. Small cells with flagella are abundant in open waters north of the Polar Front. Diatoms, large and with a siliceous cover, are found closer to Antarctica. Diatoms will be part of our studies in the next few weeks, being the preferred food of the Antarctic krill and growing in diverse forms and sizes around and on the icebergs.

Diatoms such as this Thalassiosira species abound in cold Antarctic waters. Thalassiosira means “thalassos” or “sea” from the greek meaning oceanic species.

Stations sampled along a transect from South America to North West Weddell Sea. Columns are: Date, hour, minute, Latitude degrees, latitude minutes, longitude degrees, longitude minutes, sample number.

We heard that sound again two days ago at Cape Royds, having heard it before in January 2005, when a several square kilometer opening appeared in the fast ice just offshore in a matter of hours. The ice was dissolving, or would we call it melting?, and it was happening so fast that you could see it disappearing without even needing your imagination to be going overtime. It’s kind of like putting an ice cube in a cup of boiling tea water to watch it disappear; only here the water is just a degree above freezing. That’s plenty warm as ice goes. In 2005 the fast ice was thinner, so it went from white ice to blue water; this year it was much thicker, so for a couple of weeks it slowly turned darker shades of gray, as it took on more water. Then, fzzzzzzz.

Otherwise, except for this new patch of open water within the ice, called a polynya (a Russian word; without a doubt the Inuits have a name for this, too), there is still fast ice to the horizon as I have described in various of my previous dispatches.

The Swedish icebreaker Oden going south, very slowly, through the ice a few kilometers out in McMurdo Sound, while a polynya begins to form next to Cape Royds.

The south ‘shore’ of the polynya, the day after it initially formed, showing proximity to the Cape Royds penguin colony (tan area on left side of image). The polynya is to the right, beginning to dissolve the gray ice in the center of the image.

In fact, in the Arctic, Inuit villages — and, for that matter, seabird colonies — are located near to polynyas. And, wouldn’t you know, so are penguin colonies, although at the opposite end of the Earth. This is because polynyas allow these predators much easier access to their food. Normally, McMurdo Sound is one big polynya, and the penguins are here at Royds because of it. As I’ve been making the point in previous dispatches, the Royds penguins have been having a hard time of it this season, because their polynya didn’t form, owing to calm winds which allowed the ice to thicken until not even the strongest winds could blow it away. So, they’ve had a very long walk to get food. That is, up until a few weeks ago, when the few remaining penguins still having chicks were provided a large crack to feed in, just 4-5 km north of the colony. Now they’ve got a full-fledged, mini-polynya and all is right in the World!

Well, just like in 2005, within a day of the polynya forming, a couple of minke whales showed up in it! Where they came from, I’m not sure, but they may have followed the Oden into the ice (35 km from the fast ice edge), and then pealed off when a crack that intersected the icebreaker channel allowed them to get to the Cape Royds polynya. Maybe they heard it fizzing! Or the sounds of joyful penguins!

The minke whales, for several hours, cruised around the polynya feeding all the time. They’d submerge for 6-8 min at a time and likely were like big “Hoovers”, i.e. vacuum cleaners. Between dives, they exhaled (i.e. whale “blows”) 4-5 times, clearly audible in the still air from a kilometer away. Within a couple of hours after the whales’ arrival, the penguins’ diet switched from krill to fish. I’d been monitoring it by watching what passes between adult and chick everyday for the past few weeks. Wow! I knew that the whales could do this to the penguins, but I didn’t realize that the whales were so efficient! Not long after the whales left (they’ve not been seen for about 24 hours now) the penguins’ diet switched back to krill. Therefore, this is pretty good evidence for what we call “interference competition”. The whales certainly eat a lot but also their vacuuming causes the krill to try to escape, of course. And what krill do when being pursued, if they can, is to dive deeper and, it seems, deeper than penguins want to go, especially when there are enough fish to be had at shallower depths, though apparently not in a density that in this case would interest a minke looking for easy pickings. If the whales had vacuumed all the krill, when they left, there would be no food for the penguins. As it was, the krill ventured back up into the light (where the phytoplankton occurs that the krill eat), to then be caught by the penguins again. Both whales and penguins go for the easy meal, i.e. that nearest the surface.

Parent feeding its chick. With binoculars, if you get the right angle, usually it is possible to determine whether krill (pink) or fish (gray) is being fed to the chick.

Well, so, you’d think that maybe whales are an annoyance to Adélie penguins. As it turns out, though, minke whales are life savers! Adélie penguins, if given a choice, would always want to have minke whales around, despite the whales’ appetite and despite the best (?) efforts of the Japanese whalers. You see, minke whales — because, like Adélie penguins, they are pack ice denizens — have evolved a very long and sharp “beak”. When you see the whales in areas were the sea is freezing, it becomes quickly obvious why this is a good thing. The whales use their rostrum to break breathing holes in the new ice.

This ice is thick enough that penguins walk over it. With the whales around, though, the penguins can swim between whale breathing holes much faster than walking. In fact, several years ago, when on an icebreaker at the time of ice freeze-up in the Amundsen Sea, one day there were whales and penguins swimming around, and then the next day, with a dramatic drop in temperature and a freeze, there were whale holes but no whales or penguins. Together, they had escaped north far enough to move away from the area of freezing.

A minke whale pushing up through recently frozen sea ice, the ice around it being 4-5 cm thick.

All but one of these penguins found a hole left by a minke whale; the next whale breathing hole is just behind the lone penguin and this flock of penguins is next going to appear in that hole.

These penguins are not walking on frosted glass. They are walking on ice thick enough to support their weight, but not thick enough that a minke whale could not break a hole.

It is good for Adélie penguins to have as many minke whales around as possible. This one, like the pied piper, is making a “channel” through new ice, soon to be followed by a flock (school?) of penguins, who would much rather swim than walk.

Penguins need whales, especially minke whales, as friends.

At Cape Royds we watch to see what the adults are feeding their chicks. If it is pink, then the main portion of the food is krill, if it is silver then it is fish. But what kind of fish? That is where the penguin poop tray comes in. At the end of last season we set out a large tray with a fine mesh in an area where penguins have regularly nested. After the breeding season was over and the nesting adults and chicks were gone, the tray was full of penguin guano. Several washings and sortings to eliminate the large stuff later, we sift through the rest looking for otoliths (fish ear bones) which will tell us what kind and how old the fish is. The bones do not get digested so they are passed through. It’s messy work, but important knowledge to gain about Adelie Penguins and their eating habits.

A new otolith tray set out in the field waiting for penguins to make their nests.

Luckily two penguins decided to nest in the tray. Lots of guano for us.

A season’s tray of penguin guano washed and sieved and ready for sorting under the stereoscope.

Now the work begins. It takes hours to look for the tiny bones.

An otolith, less than a millimeter long.

Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, is the largest krill species.

Adélie penguin nesting areas on Avian Island, stained red due to the penguins’ highly krill-based diet.

Dip a net into coastal Antarctic waters and you’re likely to pull up more than a few pinky-sized shrimplike crustaceans. These are krill, and if they look like small-time players in the game of life, it only goes to show exactly how deceiving looks can be.

The Antarctic food web is the simplest on the planet, and krill are at its hub. An estimated 500 million tons of krill live in the Southern Ocean, making this the most abundant animal in the entire world. Krill are such a universal food in Antarctica that for almost every animal that lives here, a “three degrees of krill” rule applies: You are krill, or you eat krill, or your food eats krill.

Whales, seals, penguins, albatross, petrels, fish, squid—every animal species living in Antarctica depends directly or indirectly on krill for survival. This heavy reliance on a single species makes the Antarctic ecosystem an unusually fragile one, particularly since many animals—including baleen whales such as the humpback, fin, minke, and blue whales—eat krill almost exclusively.

Krill, in turn, filter-feed on the abundant phytoplankton in the open ocean. In winter, they also gorge themselves on the ice algae that grow on the underside of the pack ice. A single krill can scrape clear the algae from a square-foot (.09 m²) patch of ice in ten minutes, zigging and zagging back and forth lawn mower–style.

Corethron, a type of phytoplankton, highly magnified under the microscope.

This image, taken by a remote operated underwater vehicle (or ROV), shows how most krill feed by swimming upside-down directly under the ice, grazing as they go.

Extra cold winters are a boon to most animals living in Antarctica. Colder winters mean more pack ice, and more ice algae to feed more krill, which means more food for all. In warmer years, when the pack ice is reduced, there’s a measurable decline in the krill population, sending shock waves of scarcity through the shallow Antarctic food web.

Even in good years, competition for krill can get fierce. Biologist David Ainley discovered that minke whales drive Adélie penguins from the best krill feeding zones, forcing the penguins to venture farther afield or switch to hunting fish. Humans have also joined the fray, using nets to harvest roughly 100 million tons of krill each year for use in animal feed, dietary supplements, as fish bait, and also for direct human consumption.

Researchers fear that global warming and dwindling pack ice are likely to pose serious challenges for the Antarctic ecosystem. In the short term, however, there is one perk to warmer temperatures: an increased number of icebergs. Marine scientist Maria Vernet has found that these floating oases deliver nutrients to the surrounding water as they melt, creating flourishing (if temporary) mobile ecosystems on and around the bergs.

Crabeater seals resting on a small ice floe.

Jake Ellena and Ken Smith are our bird surveyors. They count birds in flight while the ship is transiting between stations or during iceberg circumnavigation. Snow petrels are the most abundant of them; they are attracted to the iceberg, feeding on the zooplankton congregating within a few miles of the iceberg.

A Snow Petrel near Iceberg A43K.

Our sampling targets the study of the wildlife’s food source and the concept that birds and marine mammals are found in association with icebergs thanks to the physical and chemical modification of the ocean by the presence of the bergs. The icebergs enrich the water, promoting phytoplankton and zooplankton growth.

Ron Kaufmann and Bruce Robison have been monitoring some of this growth by using large nets to sample the macrozooplankton and micronekton around the iceberg. Salps (Salpa thompsoni) have dominated most of the samples at various distances from the berg. Many of these salps had highly colored guts, perhaps indicative of recent feeding, and representative salps have been analyzed for gut contents and pigments. Small phytoplankton cells, abundant at this time of the year, are preferred by salps.

One of the crustacean species that we are catching near Iceberg A43K.

Conspicuously rare in the samples have been large Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba), though large numbers of young or juvenile krill have been collected. Krill typically feed on diatoms which are not abundant in winter.

The nets also contain large numbers of vertically migrating mesopelagic fishes as well as hyperiid amphipods, small krill and occasional large medusae.

It is well known that animals aggregate around floating devices. Tuna, for example, is found underneath logs in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. In our case, a small shrimp-like animal, the Antarctic Krill, concentrates around icebergs, due to either its natural behavior or an increased ability to find food.

Chaetoceros, a species of phytoplankton that we have been finding.

One idea we are studying focuses on the amount of iron being released by melting icebergs as they travel north. As plants use iron for nutrients, release of iron would increase plants around the iceberg and provide more food for krill. Plant production is certainly increased around icebergs, sometimes by as much 30 percent.

Iceberg W-86, whose surrounding life we studied in 2005.

These rings of life are teeming with diatoms– tiny, one-celled organisms that dominate the makeup of phytoplankton. The Southern Ocean in particular is famous for its beautiful diatoms.

Corethron criophilum is the largest diatom found so far in this cruise. In spite of short and cloudy days (no more than 7 hours of sun) with little overall light, this diatom is growing well. We can see the dividing cells under the microscope.

Corethron criophilum. The diatom form is cylindrical with spines organized in a crown at the ends. The dark spots are the chloroplasts where photosynthesis occurs.

Departing from San Diego, California, the trip will take about 23 hours. I leave home at noon on Monday and arrive in the afternoon of Tuesday. My team of 3 and myself will be studying the algae in water close to icebergs and attached to the icebergs’ walls. During a preliminary study in December 2005 we found that icebergs have a great impact: the floating algae or phytoplankton, marine animals, chemistry of the water, and birds all changed with iceberg transformations. Animals and phytoplankton congregated at a certain distance from the iceberg, forming a ring around it within two square nautical miles. This ring was greener (due to more algae) than the surrounding water and had more diatoms, the preferred food of one of the most important animals in Antarctic plankton: krill. We also found that algae can attach themselves to the icebergs walls, as can diatoms. These attached diatoms were a surprise, so we did not have the right equipment to study them.

Diatoms growing on the side of an iceberg in small mats about a quarter inch in size. Individual cells are connected to others forming a ribbon which curves and forms a helix. Each strand attaches itself to sand-grain size rocks included in the ice.

This time we are ready with improved underwater vehicles to collect the diatoms and better lab equipment to describe them and understand their role in their ecological community. We will be working with Ken Smith and Bruce Robinson from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, developers of the new improved underwater instrumentation.

Icebergs are big pieces of floating ice, formed in the continent as glaciers and released to the ocean once the glacier comes in contact with the water. As the Antarctic Peninsula has been warming during the last 60 years, more and more icebergs are being released. One of the places with the most icebergs is the west Weddell Sea. We are heading to that general area, although we will not go deep south as it is winter and the sea ice would restrain travel. We expect a few hours of light and cold weather at this time of the year.

Iceberg W-86, one of the icebergs we studied in December 2005 in the Northwest Weddell Sea.

The three days in Punta Arenas will be busy as we get ready for the cruise departing on May 31st aboard the Antarctic research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer. The time in port, (or the port call,) will be busy with moving boxes, supplies and instruments onto the ship, setting up the labs where we will be working, and checking all instruments are ready. The most crucial issue is to make sure we take everything we need for the duration of the cruise as there is no coming back to port for things forgotten, nor is there any place to buy what we need. Another important activity is getting outfitted with cold-weather gear provided by the National Science Foundation.

Cassandra Brooks is a marine scientist and science writer based in California. She’s studied Antarctic marine resources since 2004 at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) and with the Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) Program.

Cassandra Brooks first began studying Antarctic toothfish in 2004 as part of her master’s thesis at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Antarctic toothfish are large, deep-sea predatory fish found only in the ice-laden waters surrounding Antarctica. Biologists who were fascinated with their ability to live in these freezing waters were the first to study these fish. It turns out that Antarctic toothfish have special proteins in their bodies that act like anti-freeze to keep their blood from freezing, thus enabling the fish to live in the icy waters off Antarctica.

Commercial fishermen took notice of the Antarctic toothfish only in the last ten years when populations of its sister species, the Patagonian toothfish, became depleted. Patagonian toothfish are found in the northern waters of the Southern Ocean, off the tip of South America and around sub-Antarctic islands. Both species of toothfish are more commonly known by their market name “Chilean Sea Bass,” though they bear no relation to sea bass. The depletions of Patagonian toothfish were likely caused by the large illegal pirate fishery, which has been estimated at up to 70 percent of the total harvest of this species.

As the subantarctic waters where the Patagonian toothfish lives were overharvested, vessels moved further south, into the remote and pristine waters of the Ross Sea, Antarctica, in search of the Antarctic toothfish. The commercial catch of Antarctic toothfish has increased steadily over the last ten years, even though very little is known about the basic biology of this fish. Cassandra’s work focuses on life history and population structure of this species. Her goal is to provide information on their age, growth, and spatial distribution to the toothfish’s managing body (CCAMLR) in order to facilitate sustainable management of this large Antarctic species.

Antifreeze Fish

Some of the coldest ocean waters on earth, where temperatures fall below the freezing point of fresh water, are found in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. Nearly every fish on the planet would freeze to death if it tried to brave such harsh conditions. The Antarctic toothfish, however, thrives in this icy environment. How does it do it?

Antarctic toothfish have evolved remarkable traits that allow them to survive in sub-freezing waters. One of these traits is a slow heartbeat—a beat only once every six seconds. The main secret of these unique fish, though—who have a natural lifespan of 40 years and can weigh in at over 200 pounds when full-grown—lies in a special protein that acts like antifreeze. By making this unique antifreeze glycoprotein, the Antarctic toothfish are able to keep their blood from freezing. It’s a remarkable evolutionary solution to surviving in the frigid waters of the Antarctic.

One of the most amazing things about these Antarctic antifreeze fish is their corollary in the Arctic, where waters reach similar subfreezing temperatures. There, fish carry a similar but different antifreeze protein—evolutionarily distinct from that of the Antarctic toothfish. What this means is that fish at both ends of the planet evolved similar antifreeze survival strategies through completely different methods.
For more on this awesome evolutionary achievement, please visit our Origins site here.

Background on AMLR

The United States is one of 25 nations that are bound by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). CCAMLR is an international treaty, the aim of which is to conserve marine life in the Southern Ocean and to ensure the harvesting of marine resources is done in a sustainable manner without disrupting the Antarctic ecosystem. The United States Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) program is responsible for collecting scientific information that will be used to develop and support US policy regarding the conservation and management of the marine resources in the waters surrounding Antarctica. For over 20 years, scientists with the AMLR program have investigated the effects of krill, crab and finfish fisheries on the ecosystem, including the effects on seal and seabird populations. The Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division (AERD), located at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center branch of NOAA Fisheries, manages the AMLR Program.

When Cassandra goes to sea with AMLR, she primarily studies zooplankton under Dr. Valerie Loeb, a marine biologist at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) and a contact scientist for AMLR. Valerie studies the abundance, demography, and distribution patterns of krill, and is head of the krill and zooplankton component of the AMLR program. Valerie and the AMLR crew study krill because these small (approximately 2–2.5 inches, or 5-6 cm) shrimp-like crustaceans are the most abundant and important food source in Antarctica. The whales, seals, fish, and seabirds in the Southern Ocean all depend on krill for their survival.

Shrimplike marine invertebrates that grow no bigger than about two and one-half inches (6 cm), krill are nonetheless food for gigantic baleen whales, along with penguins, seals, fish, sea birds, and many other predators. It may seem unlikely that 80-ton whales can be sustained by these small crustaceans, but the whales consume them by the ton—which says a lot about the numbers and concentrations in which krill are found. Krill gather into dense swarms that can have from 1,000 to 100,000 individuals per cubic yard (1 cubic meter), and a swarm can extend from 30 feet (10 meters) to almost 4 miles (6 km) in length.

Krill play a critical role in a variety of marine food webs, especially those in the polar regions. Many krill species themselves feed primarily on phytoplankton, organisms that use sunlight to synthesize their own food. In the light-filled summers of the sub-Arctic and Antarctic, there are huge blooms of phytoplankton for the krill to feed on, so there are immense swarms of krill—just when hungry penguins and migrating baleen whales need them.

In terms of biomass, krill are one of the most successful species on the planet– with a total estimated mass of approximately 500 million tonnes.

Antarctic krill have a special relationship with sea ice, which is both shelter and dining hall for larval and juvenile krill in the winter. That’s because the ice serves as habitat for algae. These ice algae live on and inside the ice and can give the floating ice a brown or greenish hue.

This image, taken by a remote operated underwater vehicle (or ROV), shows how most krill feed by swimming upside-down directly under the ice, grazing as they go. A single krill can clear one square foot of ice algae in approximately 10 minutes.

But the sea ice is shrinking in both winter and summer. This is especially pronounced in the Southern Ocean adjacent to the western Antarctica Peninsula, where there’s been a considerable increase in atmospheric and sea surface temperature. The krill population in this region has decreased by about 80% since the mid-1970s, according to several experts. Experts also think that the warmer temperatures and the loss of sea ice are at least partly to blame.

Climate change is not the only thing impacting the health of the krill population, however. During the 1970s, commercial krill fishing in Antarctic waters began expanding rapidly. Initially, the krill were used mostly for pet food and fertilizer, but more recently they’re being used for nutritional products such as omega-3 fatty acid supplements, feed for the rapidly growing aquaculture industry, and even in some new cosmetics.

Deep-frozen plates of krill meat destined for animals and humans alike. While nearly 100% of Canadian-caught krill becomes fish food, about 43% of Japanese-caught krill is targeted for human consumption as meat, pastes, or additives.

Krill fishing is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which sets catch limits. At the CCAMLR 2007 annual meeting, the commission increased the yearly allowable catch in some areas, including the coastal area of Eastern Antarctica. But they also put into place some new requirements. Now, all krill fishing vessels in the region must participate in the CCAMLR vessel monitoring system, and vessels fishing in the Eastern Antarctica area need to have observers on board. In addition, once certain catch levels have been reached, CCAMLR will introduce other measures in order to protect the animals that feed on krill.