RUI: Improving Acoustic Estimates of Antarctic Krill Populations

南极磷虾是南大洋食物网的重要一环。除了作为高营养级动物（鸟类、鳍足类动物、鲸鱼）的猎物外，它们还被几个不同的国家用于商业捕捞。作为这一管理策略的一部分，每年对磷虾种群进行大量的声学调查。虽然声学方法比其他采样技术具有许多优点，但将声学后向散射信息转换为动物的数值丰度是一个难题。该项目旨在通过小船调查收集声学、气象、水文和视频观测数据，提高南极磷虾声学调查的准确性。通过利用美国南极海洋生物资源计划（AMLR）的特许研究船，该项目将对利文斯顿岛周围的大陆架和大陆架区域进行采样，重点是南极洲希尔夫角侧面的两个海底峡谷。将在这些水域建造并部署一个由五个浮标组成的阵列，以收集长时间（数周至数月）的ADCP和声学后向散射数据。这些数据，连同小船调查的水文信息，将用于确定上环极深水是否正在沿着海底峡谷移动，并增加该地区的生产力。将确定深水流入的时空变异性，以了解控制这些水域磷虾丰度的强迫功能。这项工作的结果将提高科学家和渔业管理者利用声学数据估计磷虾丰度的能力。此外，近岸磷虾种群的重要性以及控制其分布和丰度的因素将得到更好的理解。这项研究也将改善学生在PI的一个家庭机构的本科教育体验，这是一个RUI。这些学生不仅将参与涉及数据分析的研究项目，而且该项目中使用的仪器将部署在海上，并将为学生提供现代海洋学采样方法，并让他们体验收集真实数据的好处和复杂性。这些数据将在学院的几门课程中使用，在此努力中开发的教学材料将放在一个网站上，供其他地方的教育工作者使用。浮标数据也将在网上免费提供。

Antarctic krill are a vital link in the food web of the Southern Ocean. In addition to serving as prey for the higher trophic levels (birds, pinnipeds, whales), they are also harvested commercially by several different nations. As a part of this management strategy, numerous acoustic surveys of the krill stock are conducted annually. While acoustic methods provide several advantages over other sampling techniques, the conversion of acoustic backscatter information to numerical abundance of animals is a difficult problem. This project seeks to improve the accuracy of acoustic surveys of Antarctic krill by using a small-boat survey to collect acoustic, meteorological, hydrographic, and video observation data. By utilizing the United States Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) Program's chartered research vessel, this project will sample off- and on-shelf regions around Livingston Island focusing on two submarine canyons which flank Cape Shirreff, Antarctica. An array of five spar buoys will be constructed and deployed in these waters to collect long (weeks to months) time-series of ADCP and acoustic backscatter data. These data, along with the hydrographic information from the small-boat survey, will be used to determine whether Upper Circumpolar Deep Water is traveling up the submarine canyons and increasing the productivity of this region. The spatial and temporal variability of this influx of deep water will be determined to understand the forcing functions which control the abundance of krill in these waters. The results from this work will improve the ability of scientists and fishery managers to use acoustic data to estimate krill abundance. Furthermore, the importance of near-shore krill populations, and the factors that control their distribution and abundance, will be better understood. This research will also improve the undergraduate educational experience of students at one of the PI's home institutions, which is an RUI. These students will not only participate in research projects involving data analysis, but instrumentation used in this project will be deployed off shore and will provide students with access to modern oceanographic sampling methods and allow them to experience the benefits and complications of collecting real-world data. These data will be utilized in several courses at the college, and the pedagogical materials developed in this endeavor will be placed on a web site for educators elsewhere to use. The buoy data will also be freely available on-line.