Current Assessment of Water Quality and Biota Characteristics of the Pelagic Ecosystem of the Atlantic Sector of Antarctica: The Multidisciplinary Studies by the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas

Abstract

Comprehensive studies of the ecosystem of the Atlantic sector of the Antarctic were carried out in the period between 2020 and 2022, during the 79th and 87th sea expeditions on the R/V “Akademik Mstislav Keldysh”. Concentrations of soluble forms of 15 trace elements, except Mo, in surface waters of the Southern Ocean were matched the lower limit of their background concentrations in oceanic waters. A high spatial variability of chlorophyll a—an indicator of phytoplankton biomass, which is the main food object of the Antarctic krill—was revealed. In the Bransfield Strait, the abundance of bacterioplankton exhibited a weak relationship with water temperature and a pronounced dependence on chlorophyll fluorescence. It was determined, by using the bioluminescence method, that the largest concentrations of larvae and juveniles of krill were noted in the Bransfield Strait, on the shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula. Against the background of a decline in krill abundance in recent years, there has been an intensive development of Salpa thompsoni, the main food competitor of krill. New data on the distribution of mesoparasitic copepods on endemic fish of the Southern Ocean were also obtained, and their pathogenic effect on the body of fish hosts has been revealed.