Participants:

• Micaela Ruiz (AWI) (Bio) (Proposal 3)
• Thorsten Seehaus (Uni Erlangen) (Geo) (Proposal 4) Petra Quillfeldt (Uni Gießen) (Bio) (Proposal 8)
• Ekaterina Pushkareva (Uni Köln) (Bio) (Proposal 11)
• Andreas Beck (Uni München) (Bio) (Proposal 11)
• Sebastian Krastel (Uni Kiel) (Geo) (Propsal 12)
• Sonja Berg (Uni Köln) (Geo) (Proposal 12) Marcus Gutjahr (Geomar) (Geo) (Proposal 14)

Research questions:

Response to environmental changes, improved understanding of polar processes

• How do climatic changes (present and past) affect Antarctic ecosystems (terrestrial, benthic, and marine top predators)?
• How do/did changes in ice sheet extent/dynamics affect mass transport from land to ocean?
• How do geological processes interact with/affect ecosystems along a land-to-ocean transect

Potential synergies between geo and bio:

• terrestrial biodiversity and deglaciation history (Bio/Geo)
• sea bird ecology and oceanography (Bio/Geo)
• Diversity/composition of benthos and ice sheet dynamics (Bio/Geo)
• Carbon cycling and climate feedback (Geo/Bio)

Topics:

• Mass movement and shelf morphology (12)
• Ice sheet history (marine-based investigations based on sediment cores, bathymetry and seismic) (12)
• Ice sheet history (land-based investigations in ice-free coastal regions) (12)
• Modern-day up-lift, GNNS observations (12)
• Ice sheet thickness measurements (GPR) (4)
• pelagic and benthic diversity and food webs (shelf, benthos underneath ice (sea ice and ice shelves) (3)
• effects of natural climate variations on terrestrial microbial communities, bryophytes, lichens, and biocrusts (sampling along latitudinal gradient) (11)
• Dynamics of the Antarctic Coastal Current or ACC (?) (14)
• Blue petrel: distribution in late summer/winter foraging habitats (reported feeding grounds along ACC fronts) (8)
• Anthropogenic induced pollutants in top predators (blue petrel) (8)

Methods:

• Seismic survey (12)
• Parasound, multibeam (12)
• Sediment coring (Gravity, Mulitcorer) (12, 3)
• Multinet (3)
• CTD (3)
• Trace metal clean CTD (14)
• Airborne GPR (Helicopter, land-based, day-campaigns) (4)
• GNNS stations (Helicopter, land-based, day-campaigns/field camp?) (12)
• Soil sampling (Helicopter, land-based, day-campaigns) (11)
• Lake sediment coring (Helicopter, land-based, field camp) (12)
• Bird census and sampling of single specimen (8)

Study area:

Bellingshausen or Cosmonaut Sea? Discussed but not yet defined (Zoom meeting set for June 17th, 2 – 4 pm, please see meeting protocol attached). All groups decided to postpone this decision. The groups will discuss internally whether both areas are suitable for realizing the planned work, or whether there are reasons to choose one or the other of the two regions.

Work program:

Work programs can be divided into off-shore (8, 14, 12), shelf/nearshore (14, 3), and land-based work (12, 4, 11). It could be organized in transects along which the different sampling programs can be carried out. Some of the tasks can be carried out simultaneously (e.g. Helicopter operations and marine sampling in near-shore areas). Others can be combined in single stations (CTD, Multinet, coring or CTD, bird census)

Expressed interest in joining the initiative:

• Cornelia Spiegel (Uni Bremen) (Geology)
• Frank Lisker (Uni Bremen) (Geology)