The women studying our seas

GRID-Arendal’s videographer, Olivia Rempel, joined the nearly month-long cruise to document life on board the vessel and the various experiments being undertaken by researchers breaking new ground in their respective fields. To celebrate the International Day for Women and Girls in Science, we’re highlighting some of the researchers who were aboard the cruise, the majority of them women! Keep reading to learn more about how these impressive researchers conduct experiments and collect samples to learn more about one of the most extreme and remote environments on Earth. 

Camilla Svensen and Ingrid Wiedmann work for UiT – the Arctic University of Norway. Camilla is a professor in marine ecology focusing on Arctic zooplankton biodiversity, food webs and the biological carbon pump, and Ingrid is a researcher, primarily focused on vertical flux, or the links between the upper levels of the ocean and the seafloor. 

Ingrid’s focus in ECOTIP includes investigating the ecological links between sea ice, pelagic, and benthos in fjords and Arctic (shelf) seas, determining the downwards biomass flux in the field with short-term sediment traps, examine the role of physical drivers on the the downward flux, as well as study biological drivers, such as microalgae and zooplankton, and their influence on sinking particles.

During the cruise, they deployed their sediment traps to capture “marine snow,” or “ocean dandruff,” which are some creative terms to describe the living and dead particles that fall from the upper levels of the water column to the lower levels.

Anna Törnroos-Remes is an associate professor at Åbo Akademi University and Phoebe Armitage’s doctoral supervisor! They are part of the ECOTIP benthic ecology team, spending busy nights sampling the seafloor. Anna and Phoebe used a piece of machinery called a box corer, which scoops up a half-metre square piece of the surface of the seafloor. The team then searches for sea creatures in the muck, sifting to make sure they don’t miss anything. What they find is usually pretty tiny, but occasionally they’ll pull up a sea star! 

But instead of focusing on the individual creatures, Anna and Phoebe want to study the bigger picture. Why are these creatures where they are, and how they all link together. How might environmental change impact the distribution of these species, and what are these creatures doing to impact their environment?

The goal is to better understand how the seafloor is changing due to changes found in both ocean temperature and the amount of organic material sinking to the bottom.

Marja Koski is the project coordinator for ECOTIP and also a professor at DTU Aqua (the Danish Technical University). Aside from the high level coordination work associated with running a large project like ECOTIP, Marja’s research focuses on the role of zooplankton in foodwebs and their role in carbon sequestration.  

The type of zooplankton in a particular region impacts the amount of carbon that can be sequestered, but we don’t know why a certain type of zooplankton will be more prevelant in one region and not another, so Marja is interested in finding that out. 

Sigrún Jónasdóttir is a marine lipid ecologist, also at DTU Aqua. Sigrún studies a key species in the North Atlantic, a copepod that accumulates lipids (fats), and how climate change impacts the amount of fat they can accumulate, and therefore their survival. These big copepods are a keystone species, and if they were to disappear, it could lead to the entire ecosystem collapsing. 

Marja and Sigrún’s research requires gathering zooplankton samples, which they do with a variety of nets that allow them to capture these creatures at different depths.

Curious to learn more about their work and the ECOTIP Arctic project? Visit the website for more information on upcoming events, including an exhibit highlighting the key findings of the ECOTIP project in Brussels alongside the EU Polar Cluster and similarly themed H2020 projects FACE-IT and CHARTER. We look forward to seeing you there!