As part of my Carbon Literacy Training last year, I developed a personal Action Plan with a pledge: to celebrate World Bicycle Day on 3rd June 2025 by encouraging as many people as possible to cycle to work – or after work – in support of sustainable travel. This initiative aimed to reduce our collective carbon footprint while promoting healthier, more active lifestyles. In the lead-up to the day, I shared the initiative within the BIOPOLE project community to help maximise participation and visibility. 

I’m thrilled to share that a number of colleagues took to their bikes and joined the ride in honour of World Bicycle Day across the UK. I’ve created a collage of photos to celebrate everyone who took part – thank you all for making the effort and embracing the spirit of sustainable transport. 

The bicycle is more than a mode of transport; it’s a symbol of environmental responsibility, community action, and well-being. Cycling is an accessible, low-impact way we can all contribute to a more sustainable future, one pedal at a time. 

I hope these shared experiences continue to inspire more people to consider cycling – not just on World Bicycle Day, but all year round. 

Let’s keep riding – for our health, our planet, and a low-carbon future. 

The Author of this Article Ruta Hamilton (British Antarctic Survey)

Siobhán Foden

• Please introduce yourself.  

My name is Siobhán Foden, I am the biogeochemistry lab technician at BAS working with the Ecosystems and Polar Oceans teams. 

• Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the BIOPOLE Community. 

I studied my undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Nottingham and during my final year, I came across some reading material on polar sciences in the university library. I went on to study a masters in oceanography at the University of Southampton, focusing my research on biogeochemistry, specifically on the factors influencing organic carbon storage in glacially influenced marine sediment. Before joining BAS, I worked in a nuclear services consultancy gaining experience in nuclear waste characterisation and land remediation.

• What do you do within BIOPOLE?  

As part of BIOPOLE, I support the technical lab work associated with the project. I am involved in the fieldwork preparation, instrument maintenance, and processing and analysis of biogeochemical samples collected during the cruises. I am also taking part in fieldwork onboard the SDA. I will support the winter biogeochemical sampling activities, by collecting underway water samples, complementing data collected earlier in the spring/summer season. These samples will be analysed for organic particulate matter and inorganic nutrients, which will aid our understanding of the relationships connecting phyto- and zooplankton communities with nutrient dynamics, and oceanography.

• What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

It has been an amazing opportunity to be involved in a multidisciplinary research community, collaborating with scientists on such an exciting project. I love working in the lab and having such a variety of samples to work on means I’m continuously expanding my skillset.

• Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

In my spare time I enjoy being outdoors, hiking, playing sport and staying active. Although living in a city has its advantages, I feel most relaxed in nature. My favourite environment is being in the mountains or by the coast.

Simeon Hill

• Please introduce yourself.  

I am Simeon Hill, a marine and fisheries ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). 

• Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the BIOPOLE Community. 

I studied the foraging behaviour of juvenile plaice for my PhD and then spent five years providing scientific advice to fishery managers in an overseas territory. Much of my work in BAS is focused on managing the impacts of fishing on Antarctic marine ecosystems. This leads to a whole range of research questions about the ecological role of fished species, especially Antarctic krill, and how ecosystems respond to change. These questions extend to the role of krill in nutrient cycles, and the role of ecosystems in supporting fisheries. I have consistently used modelling as a tool for describing and understanding ecosystems and I also spend part of my time in scientific working groups aiming to progress Antarctic marine conservation.

• What do you do within BIOPOLE?  

My work in BIOPOLE WP3 aims to assess the importance of polar nutrient export for supporting marine ecosystems and fisheries at the global scale. This export provides some of the raw materials necessary to support primary production in all of the world’s oceans which, in turn, sustains the animal biomass that supports fisheries. BIOPOLE will provide a better understanding of the connections between polar nutrient exports and global marine primary production. I work in collaboration with the FishMIP community of marine ecosystem modellers to assess how this primary production translates into fishable biomass. In particular we are exploring how future change is likely to affect the stability and predictability of fishable biomass.

• What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

BIOPOLE has provided opportunities to collaborate across disciplines within my own institute, with other UK institutes, and internationally. I have really enjoyed developing these collaborations and benefited from the perspectives of colleagues working in other disciplines and on other geographical areas.

• Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

My scientific thinking is the product of my influences but one thing I try to pass on is to appreciate the value of uncertainty. Understanding the difference between ‘right’ and ‘useful’ allows us to make progress with the information available. Understanding why we’re uncertain tells us what information we need next.

Sally Thorpe

• Please introduce yourself.  

I’m Sally Thorpe and I am an ecosystem modeller and leader of the Pelagic Ecosystems group at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

• Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the BIOPOLE Community. 

After doing a degree in Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, I stayed on in the fine city of Norwich to do a PhD in physical oceanography as a CASE student with BAS, focussing on the ocean circulation of the Scotia Sea in the Southwest Atlantic and its impact on the ecosystem, and that’s what I’ve been doing pretty much ever since here at BAS. I use a wide range of data and analysis tools, including modelling, to investigate the environmental drivers for the ecological variability that we observe in the Southern Ocean.

• What do you do within BIOPOLE?  

My main contribution is through WP2. Part of my research focuses on investigating the transport of small-but-mighty copepods during their diapause and the impact of this on carbon export using individual based modelling, working closely with Emma Young and our ace biologists to make sure that our modelling is based on best available knowledge. This research links to WP3 where we make sure that our modelling efforts are joined up as best we can. I’ve also been involved in planning and delivery of fieldwork for the Southern Ocean aspects of BIOPOLE.

• What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

I’m really enjoying BIOPOLE, both delving into the science and working with the great team that we have. I recently took part in the BIOPOLE II cruise on the RRS Sir David Attenborough, returning to my observational physical oceanography roots after a brief 20-year break. It was the perfect reintroduction to fieldwork: a multidisciplinary cruise with a team of highly skilled, lovely people made for a productive and fun time at sea, with lots to take forwards now we’re home.

• Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

I’m a keen netball player and happy northerner, two traits that aligned at the 2019 Yorkshire Open Egg Throwing Championship where my teammate/daughter and I won the silver medal, following in the footsteps of previous winner England footballer Beth Mead.

Biological nitrogen fixation is considered the major input of reactive nitrogen in low latitude open ocean regions, fuelling primary productivity and carbon export. For decades, nitrogen fixation had been assumed to be absent in the temperate shelf seas and high latitude ocean. However, there is now growing evidence that nitrogen-fixers are active in these systems, but the magnitude, environmental drivers, players and ecological implications are poorly known. This evidence is accumulating at a time when these systems are rapidly changing, underscoring the need for a focused effort in the scientific community to accelerate understanding of nitrogen fixation beyond the low latitudes. Compared to open oceans, temperate shelf and high latitude regions are heterogeneous and highly dynamic, limiting observations and challenging modelling efforts. Current models that include nitrogen fixation parametrise the geographical extent as a function of reactive nitrogen and/or temperature, excluding cold and nutrient-rich temperate shelf and high latitude oceans. In late March, Mar Benevides and colleagues attended a workshop at the ALSO 2025 conference in Charlotte, North Carolina to bring together the communities working on modelling nitrogen fixation with those of the physical oceanography, biogeochemical and molecular observational communities. The aim was to identify the data types and mechanistic understanding needed to parametrise nitrogen fixation beyond low latitude regions. It is hoped the workshop will provide a path forward to further develop models that incorporate nitrogen fixation in temperate shelf and high latitude oceans, to enable quantifying its contribution to the global nitrogen inventory, hypothesis testing and forecasting changes in nitrogen fixation in the future ocean. The workshop has also led to a proposal for a SCOR working group on this theme. 

The Author of this Article Mar Benavides (National Oceanography Centre)

More than 30 BIOPOLE scientists, in person or online, took part in the BIOPOLE II cruise planning meeting on 11^th Nov at the British Antarctic Survey. The cruise (SD046) will be on board the Sir David Attenborough and will be led jointly by Geraint Tarling and Sophie Fielding of BAS. It will sample large areas of the Scotia and Weddell Sea in the Southern Ocean during February and March, 2025. SD046 is deliberately timed to be in the late summer to autumn period when there is a large seasonal migration of mesozooplankton into deep ocean layers, where they overwinter. It is during this time that many are likely to be washed onto the banks of continental shelves to be predated on by organisms living on the seabed.  All of these processes are key to the sequestration of atmospheric carbon into the deep ocean. 

During the cruise meeting, Geraint and Sophie firstly outlined the general plan, highlighting the three distinct phases of the cruise (see map above), the first focussing on the South Georgia region (phase SG), the second, a long transect in the eastern Scotia Sea (phase A23) and the third, sampling in the Weddell Sea, particularly the South Orkneys and Powell Basin (phase BP). There will be a different emphasis to the sampling plans in each of these three phases, although all will involve sampling plankton and seabed organisms and measuring the physical and biogeochemical properties of the water.  

There followed presentations from each of the science disciplines taking part, including ocean physics, biogeochemistry, phytoplankton, zooplankton, krill, benthic communities, and higher predators/marine mammals. This led into breakout groups considering water sampling protocols, the use of controlled temperature rooms and approaches to higher predator monitoring. The meeting ended with a general discussion on how to prepare for life on board, how activities may differ between sampling stations, and further contingencies in the face of unknown factors such as the early advance of sea-ice over our intended sampling area. These matters, and others, were considered further in the more relaxed atmosphere of the Castle Pub later that evening. In all, a successful meeting and a good foundation on which to develop further plans for the cruise.  

The Author of this Article Geraint Tarling (British Antarctic Survey)

We’re thrilled to announce that BIOPOLE has expanded its online presence by joining Instagram and Bluesky! These platforms will allow us to connect with a broader community, share ground breaking research, and foster meaningful conversations about the Arctic, Antarctic, and the future of our planet. 

Follow us for updates, insights, and discussions that matter to scientists, activists, and anyone passionate about polar regions and global change. 

📲 Find us on Instagram: @biopole_nerc_nc 
🌐 Join us on Bluesky: @biopole.bsky.social 

Let’s shape the future of polar science together—see you online! 

Antarctic benthic ecological change – Huw Griffiths

“Antarctic benthic ecological change” is an invited review summing up our current knowledge of ongoing and future impacts of environmental change on the seafloor (benthic) animals and plants around Antarctica. The benthic community around Antarctica is diverse and highly endemic. These cold-adapted species are under threat from local and global drivers, including warming, acidification and changes to the cryosphere. We summarized observed, experimental and modelled Antarctic benthic ecological change. Warming, glacial melt and retreat, and reduced ice cover are causing regional benthic biomass to increase or decrease, depending on the additional influences of ice scour, turbidity and freshening.

Additionally, the dominance of previously cold-restricted or light-restricted species is increasing, and several ecological tipping points have already been breached, leading to ecological phase shifts in some habitats. The largest changes have been observed in communities in the shallows of the West Antarctic Peninsula, notably change to distribution, biodiversity, biomass and food webs. Models based on observational and experimental evidence indicate that these changes will spread deeper and eastwards throughout this century. Available data are primarily limited to a handful of shallow-water taxa; thus, future work will need to involve multispecies observations and experiments encompassing multiple drivers to understand community and ecosystem responses, and autonomous monitoring techniques to fill geographical, bathymetric, seasonal and taxonomic gaps; advances in environmental DNA and artificial-intelligence-based techniques will help to rapidly analyse such data.

The full paper may be (open) accessed here.   

The author of this article Huw Griffiths (British Antarctic Survey)

In the early morning of December 20th Kate Hendry (BAS) and Alanna Grant (CEH) boarded the British Antarctic Survey’s Dash 7 airplane at Punta Arenas airport to make the five-hour journey across the Drake Passage to the West Antarctic Peninsula. They were making their way to Rothera Research Station for the BIOPOLE project.

The overall aim of the BIOPOLE Rothera campaign was to assess the flux of organic and inorganic nutrients into Ryder Bay, the glaciated bay near Rothera Research Station. Kate and Alanna worked together in 2023 during the first BIOPOLE Svalbard fieldwork season, but faced very different conditions this time around off the West Antarctic Peninsula.

Whilst the northern fieldwork involved extensive river sampling, of glaciated and non-glacial river systems, the freshwater inputs into Ryder Bay are much harder to access. They’re hoping to be able to sample surface meltwater runoff later in the season, as the summer months progress, but in the meantime will be sampling seawater and using isotope geochemistry to unpick the meltwater contributions.

As well as characterising freshwater inputs, the team have been working with the Rothera Time Series (RaTS) project, together with Rothera Ocean Scientists Alice Clement and Sean McLoughlin, to sample marine waters within Ryder Bay. RaTS has been operating since 1997, and is an almost unique long-term observational dataset, especially important as data are collected year-round (not just in the Antarctic summer, when access is more straightforward).

The BIOPOLE fieldwork is being carried out in collaboration with NERC-funded project SiCLING. Kate will be joined by SiCLING team members later in January to carry out sampling of marine sediments and waters.

The BIOPOLE/SiCLING team would like to thank Allie and Sean (Rothera Ocean Scientists), and the rest of the marine team. Thanks also to everyone at Rothera Research Station for all their support.

The author of the article – Kate Hendry from British Antarctic Survey and Alanna Grant from UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Rachael Sanders

• Please introduce yourself.  

My name is Rachael Sanders, I’m a postdoc in the Polar Oceans team at BAS. 

• Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the BIOPOLE Community. 

I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Liverpool, where I studied maths with oceans and climate science, with a year also working at the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool. After that, I moved to Cambridge to do a PhD with BAS and the University of Southampton, exploring drivers of interannual variability in Southern Ocean water masses, and particularly the impact of sea ice changes on Subantarctic Mode Water. Since then, I have completed two short postdocs; the first at BAS, where I investigated the causes of the 2015 North Atlantic cold anomaly within different ocean models. The second was at NORCE in Bergen, where I was developing a method to quantify different processes driving deoxygenation using observations from the North Atlantic.

• What do you do within BIOPOLE?  

I’m a physical oceanographer working in Work Package 1. I’m using measurements of oxygen isotopes from the Arctic and Southern Ocean to determine the fraction of water that originates from different sources. By looking at the ratio of different oxygen isotopes, along with the salinity of the water samples, it is possible to calculate how much of the freshwater originated from sea ice, compared to glacial melt and precipitation.

• What have you enjoyed about BIOPOLE so far? 

It’s really nice to be working with such a diverse group of people with different academic backgrounds.

• Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share? 

I’m not sure I have any particularly unique skills, but after asking around for ideas, I’ve been told that I keep morale high… although this is probably just because I organise weekly cake at work, forcing everyone to socialise.