NOAA's Undersea Research Program (NURP), along with NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration (OE), NOAA's Marine and Aviation Operations (NMAO) and the NOAA Fisheries, co-funded research on krill mortality, which was recently published in the July 18, 2003 issue of Science.

The article entitled "Mass Mortality of Krill Caused by Parasitoid Ciliates" by J. Gomez-Guitierrez, William T. Peterson, Alex D. Robertis, and Richard D. Brodeur was published as a Brevia (800 words or less). This short article describes the ecology of euphausiids or krill, a pelagic crustacean found throughout the world's oceans. Although krill are an important link in the pelagic food chain, little is known about their mortality. This study identifies a parasitic ciliate that resulted in significant infection rates in krill that led to a large-scale mortality event.

Since this paper was restricted in length, the authors emailed an extended acknowlegement section which included support by NURP, OE and NMAO. The ROPOS, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), operations were successfully conducted from the NOAA ship R/V Ron Brown in Astoria canyon off Oregon on the seafloor (220 to 550 m depth).

For more information, see the Science Magazine website.

Contact information
Name: Kimberly Puglise
kimberly.puglise@noaa.gov