Sea ice and oceanic boundaries have a dominant effect in structuring Antarctic marine ecosystems. Satellite imagery and historical data have identified the southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current as a site of enhanced biological productivity. Meso-scale surveys off the Antarctic peninsula have related the abundances of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and salps (Salpa thompsoni) to inter-annual variations in sea-ice extent. Here we have examined the ecosystem structure and oceanography spanning 3,500 km of the east Antarctic coastline, linking the scales of local surveys and global observations. Between 80 degrees and 150 degrees E there is a threefold variation in the extent of annual sea-ice cover, enabling us to examine the regional effects of sea ice and ocean circulation on biological productivity. Phytoplankton, primary productivity, Antarctic krill, whales and seabirds were concentrated where winter sea-ice extent is maximal, whereas salps were located where the sea-ice extent is minimal. We found enhanced biological activity south of the southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current rather than in association with it. We propose that along this coastline ocean circulation determines both the sea-ice conditions and the level of biological productivity at all trophic levels.

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During the voyage of the RSV Aurora Australis to the region of Prydz Bay, Antarctica in January-March 1991, ice crystals were encountered at depths from the surface to 125-m in the western area of the bay. On two occasions, crystals were retrieved by netting, and echo sounder records have been used to infer additional regions of occurrence. Acoustic target strength estimates made on the ice crystal assemblies encountered show significant spatial variation, which may relate to crystal size and/or aggregation. Data from a suite of conductivity-temperature-depth casts have been used to map regions of the study area where in situ water temperatures fell below the computed freezing point. Such regions correlate well with those selected on the basis of echogram type and imply that ice crystals occurred at depth over large areas of the bay during the cruise period. The ice crystal distribution described is consistent with that expected from a plume of supercooled water emerging from under the Amery Ice Shelf and forming part of the general circulation of the bay. The magnitude of the supercooled water plume is greater than those reported previously in the Prydz Bay region. If misinterpreted as biota on echo sounder records, ice crystals could significantly bias biomass estimates based on echo integration in this and potentially other areas. 12,579 0 100 200 300 400 500 SALINITY (psu) 34 35 ß .

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Hydroacoustic surveys were used to examine zooplankton distributions in coastal waters off Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia. Surveys were timed to coincide with the seasonal aggregation of whale sharks, Rhincodon typus, and other large zooplanktivores in these waters. The surveys examined scattering features of lagoon/shelf fronts, a series of cross-shelf transects and waters surrounding whale sharks swimming at the surface. These suggested that lagoon waters flow intrusively into shelf waters at reef passages in a layered exchange. Cross-shelf transects identified three vertical scattering layers: a surface bubble layer; a near-surface minimum layer; and a bottom maximum layer. Regions of intense mixing of lagoon and shelf waters were detected seaward and to the north of reef passages. Integrated acoustic mean volume backscatter of the bottom maximum layer increased with depth and distance offshore. Large subsurface aggregations of unidentified fauna were detected beneath whale sharks in the same area that manta rays and surface schools of euphausiids were also observed.

Buelens, B., Pauly, T., Williams, R., and Sale, A. 2009. Kernel methods for the detection and classification of fish schools in single-beam and multibeam acoustic data. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1130–1135. A kernel method for clustering acoustic data from single-beam echosounder and multibeam sonar is presented. The algorithm is used to detect fish schools and to classify acoustic data into clusters of similar acoustic properties. In a preprocessing routine, data from single-beam echosounder and multibeam sonar are transformed into an abstracted representation by multidimensional nodes, which are datapoints with spatial, temporal, and acoustic features as components. Kernel methods combine these components to determine clusters based on joint spatial, temporal, and acoustic similarities. These clusters yield a classification of the data in groups of similar nodes. Including the spatial components results in clusters for each school and effectively detects fish schools. Ignoring the spatial components yields a classification according to acoustic similarities, corresponding to classes of different species or age groups. The method is described and two case studies are presented.

Target strength measurements of free-swimming krill at 120 kHz were made using a single-beam monostatic system in a 10-m3 laboratory tank. Krill (grouped according to length classes) swam freely in the tank triggering a data acquisition system when generating a backscattered signal larger than a threshold, determined by the system noise level. Dorsal and ventral target strength estimates were calculated indirectly by deconvolution of the cumulative probability function of echo ensembles of single-animal insonifications. For mean length classes in the range [29.6 to 36.2] mm the median single-animal target strengths are in the range [−76.7 to −71.8] dB. Monte Carlo computer simulations were used to evaluate the effects of varying the ratio of largest to smallest echo amplitudes for a given ensemble, thus enabling the estimation of threshold induced bias in the target strength estimates. The threshold induced bias was then determined for each ensemble of experimental data and used to determine corrections which were in the range of [−0.84 to −0.33] dB. An error analysis of the target strength estimates detailing the components due to measurement accuracy and precision, and the indirect signal processing techniques used is also presented.