High-Latitude Ocean Change Laboratory: a Kasitsna Bay Laboratory Improvement Grant

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

The oceans are experiencing unprecedented changes, for example, in terms of warming temperatures and an increase in the water's acidity, called ocean acidification. Marine organisms are being physiologically challenged by these environmental changes across their life stages, which then impacts their performance and survival, and ultimately endangering overall ecosystem balance. Such changes are particularly pronounced in very productive, high-latitude marine systems where many organisms are often finely tuned to their specific environment. Hence, there is a great need to better monitor and understand the changes, the rates of changes, and how these changes affect the marine organisms. This project specifically improves the ability to accurately characterize the current physical and chemical ocean environment with state-of-the-art oceanic sensors, and the ability to test the response of marine organisms to future environmental changes with an innovative ocean change experimental system (OCES). The location of this project is the Kasitsna Bay Laboratory (https://www.uaf.edu/cfos/about-us/locations/kasitsna-bay/) and the surrounding waters of Kachemak Bay, in south-central Alaska. The region is valued for its diverse marine habitat types and rich marine life, which support extensive marine fisheries and subsistence harvests. Results of this study are, therefore, highly valuable for local stakeholders but results also are transferable to stakeholders in other high-latitude systems. Through the association with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the environmental data collection and the experiments that can be done with the OCES add to the education of a new generation of scientists. The public and general research community is informed of these data and research possibilities through outreach activities and presentations at various scientific and public forums, on websites, social media, and through workshops. These data are available for the broader public through publicly available databases (e.g., the Alaska Ocean Observing System, the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network). The project uses a series of instruments that are deployed in the ocean along a glacial gradient to measure ocean acidity (pH), temperature, salinity, and oxygen. These measurements are done at high resolution, every few hours, to characterize the present environmental conditions with the inherent short-term changes based on tidal cycles and daily weather conditions. In addition, the project includes an OCES laboratory system, where the current conditions can be manipulated into future ocean scenarios, including altering ocean acidification, temperature, salinity, and oxygen. This allows for the testing of the responses of individual organisms of interest, such as in their development, growth rates, metabolic rates, etc., under predicted future ocean conditions with comparison to measurements under current conditions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.