We are out of candy, so we are heading in to Wainwright. Well, we are out of candy, but that’s not why we are heading in to Wainwright. The 2015 AMBON cruise is coming to an end on Saturday. We managed to complete our sampling goals within our scheduled timeframe despite losing a total of one week to poor weather. Not only did we complete our sampling goals, we did so with one day to spare! The night science crew simply rocked through the sample stations night after night.
The best birds of the cruise were Dovekies—they were a first for both Dan and I. In addition, we saw a lot of Kittlitz’s Murrelets, which was very neat and unexpected. Dan mapped out our raw data, and we can see clear patterns in seabird distributions. We are looking forward to looking into the associations between seabirds, the prey, and their habitats.
As chief scientist, Dr. Katrin Iken (University of Alaska Fairbanks) is responsible for leading the science crew and managing all research operations. For her, the best part of the cruise was seeing everyone, both the science and the boat crew, working together towards the same goal. She also gained a new appreciation for the complexity of the Chukchi Sea ecosystem. During the cruise, she was able to see for herself how drastically the benthic community can change over very short distances. At one station, the benthic community would be dominated by sand dollars, at the next station 10 miles away, it would be dominated by brittle stars, and at the next station another 10 miles way, it would be dominated by juvenile crabs. Working closely with scientists from a variety of other fields in marine science made it easier for her to place her research on benthic communities within the big ecosystem picture. Dr. Iken is particularly curious to see how the benthic community and the ecosystem as a whole change from year to year. She is already excited for next year’s cruise!
ABMON 2015. Photo credit: Seth Danielson
We are all a little sad to get off the Norseman II and leave the Chukchi, but we are also very much looking forward to stretching our legs and delving into our data!