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Chilly Changes

During a 2011 research cruise from Chile to the Southern Ocean aboard the R/V Laurence M. Gould, scientists observed flocks of Gentoo penguins on small ice floes near the Antarctic Peninsula. The purpose of the expedition was to investigate how climate change is altering the migration of salps, a kind of gelatinous zooplankton that gather in massive swarms, use mucus-covered internal nets to capture tiny prey, and transport tons of carbon to the ocean depths. The Gentoos were not part of the study but changes to salp populations in the region are changing the dynamics of the food web. (Photo by Melissa Patrician, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)