Over a month has passed since boarding the Research Vessel Ice Breaker (RVIB) Nathaniel B. Palmer from the Lyttleton harbor in New Zealand. Our excursion through the Ross Sea in Antarctica has kept us all very busy. However, we have all been very lucky to witness various forms of life along the vast ice formations, including those we cannot see with the naked eye but provide the structure and backbone for life behind the scenes for many organisms living in one of the harshest places on Earth.

The first animal people think of in Antarctica are penguins- and rightfully so! There are 7 species of penguins that can be found on this continent. So far, we have seen two notable ones on this trip: Adelie and Emperor penguins. Possessing no land predators, these Emperor penguins have no qualms about waddling curiously up to our ship to check us out. Adept swimmers, penguins can jet through the water between speeds of 3-6 mph to hunt for Antarctic squid, krill, and fish. However, these savvy swimmers can be prey to their most deadly predator- the Leopard Seal. On rare occasions, we have been able to identify these Leopard Seals among the ice sheets for their spotted pattern and strong set of jaws. We have also seen the Weddell, Crabeater, and Ross Seals.

Antarctica is also home to many invertebrates such as sea spiders, sea pigs, and many crustaceans and worms. A sea cucumber, aptly named Sea Pig due to their pink, flesh-colored gelatinous bodies, is remarkably resilient to high pressure environments along the ocean floor. While the formidable looking sea spiders are harmless to humans, scientists have discovered they have claws growing out of their brains!

We can’t forget the reason for our trip, and the real star of the show hidden beneath 900 m (nearly 3000 feet) of water. From larger organisms (macrofauna), we take a dive (no pun intended) to the bottom sediments of the Ross Sea where microorganisms including both Bacteria and Archaea can thrive under low temperature and high pressure conditions. Archaea are a domain of microbes containing methanogens, a special group which produces biological methane anaerobically (without oxygen) in our natural world. In the microbial community we also expect to find methanotrophs, which are organisms that “eat” methane for energy, anaerobically or aerobically. These two organisms together may help regulate methane in the atmosphere. Why is that important, you may ask?

Methane is important because it is an especially potent greenhouse gas with a heating power 28 times stronger than the heating power of carbon dioxide. Studying the origins of methane in deep sea sediments can help us understand global carbon cycling, and the role that microbes play. While the exact number of microbial species in the world is unknown, scientists estimate that as many as tens of millions of microbial species could potentially exist in our ocean. We study these organisms by looking at their DNA and RNA. Analysis of microbial DNA tells us about the genetic potential in the microbial community, and RNA tells us about the current activity of that community. With this knowledge we get one step closer to answering questions such as what organisms live in these systems, their capabilities, and how they can function.

The members of the Kiel Reese Lab participating in this expedition include Lydia Hayes-Guastella (PhD Student Researcher), Dr. Katie Howe (Post-doctoral Researcher), and Kristen Lamprecht (PhD Student Researcher). This research expedition is funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (award number 2044453 to Dr. Brandi Kiel Reese).