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Trawling for krill clues

WHOI Researcher Philip Alatalo, left, and Guest Investigator Robert Campbell from the University of Rhode Island deploy a Tucker Trawl in an effort to catch krill during a recent cruise to the Beaufort Sea. The research is part of a program designed to understand the transport of krill and other zooplankton onto the extensive shallow shelf in Northern Alaska. The scientists’ goal is to understand what controls the distribution of whale food—krill and copepods—off the coast of Barrow, Alaska in the fall. The project is part of a larger effort to part of a larger effort to understand the coastal ecosystem and the whaling communities in this Arctic region. The Tucker Trawl is a net designed to fish close to the bottom and at higher speeds than regular plankton nets.

(Photo courtesy of Carin Ashjian, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)