TITLE:     Palmer LTER: Fine-scale distribution of Antarctic krill, Euphausia
           superba, within coastal waters near Palmer Station off the Antarctic
           Peninsula
AUTHOR:    LB Quetin, RM Ross and CM Lascara
PAGE:      225 of SCAR SIXTH BIOLOGY SYMPOSIUM, Antarctic Communities: Species,
           Structure and Survival 
ABSTRACT:  The coastal waters south of Anvers Island encompass the summer
foraging grounds for Adelie penguins and south polar skuas found nesting near
Palmer Station.  As part of the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)
program this area was sampled intensively with two surveys over a one-week
period in January 1993 to establish biological and physical linkages within
the pelagic ecosystem and to investigate trophodynamic relationships of key
species.  The two multidisciplinary surveys were conducted along a fine-scale
grid with transect lines space 10 km apart and extending roughly 60 km
offshore from Palmer Basin.  Acoustic estimates of krill biomass were
vertically-integrated (10-200 m) and average over 1-km subsamples of the
acoustic transects.  Mean krill biomass estimates obtained from the first and
second surveys ranged from 0-660 g m-2 and 0-750 g m-2, respectively.  These
values represent the highest krill biomass observed by the LTER program since
sampling began in 1991.  The cumulative frequency distributions of krill
biomass for all 1-km subsamples were almost identical between the two sampling
periods with a mean value of 100 g m-2 for both surveys.  Thus, over a time
scale of one week, the general distribution of krill within the study area did
not change, despite the passage of a strong storm (Force 10 winds) between the
first and second survey.  Concentrations of krill exceeding 200 g m-2 were
observed during this study and extended spatially over scales of 2-10 km.  The
patterns of krill distribution are also analyzed in relation to the observed
distributions of phytoplankton, seabirds, hydrographic properties and flow
regimes.