Clare Webster is a postgraduate researcher in the Pelagic Ecology Research Group at the University of St. Andrews in the UK. Her research is centered on the distribution of zooplankton in ice-impacted coastal environments. In these critically changing environments, pelagic processes such as the daily vertical migrations of zooplankton are crucial to our understanding of the biological carbon pump. Daily vertical migrations occur at dawn, when most zooplankton descend to avoid visual predators in surface waters, only ascending again at dusk to feed in the relative safety of darkness. In terms of the biological carbon pump, research has indicated that these migrants can transport carbon directly from the surface waters to depth. To investigate this, Clare measures carbon flux in polar regions, along with making observations of zooplankton vertical distribution. Methods involve active acoustics, trawling, and the video plankton recorder (VPR). On this research cruise She hopes to learn a lot of new skills and to assist where possible, applying the acoustic method to the investigation of prey fields of foraging whales.
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