Since 1999, the Alfred-Wegener Institute (AWI), has conducted long-term ecological research in the Fram Strait, the passage between East Greenland and Svalbard. In June, Katrin Linse and I joined for this year’s ‘HAUSGARTEN’ expedition on board the research vessel and icebreaker, Polarstern.

This was a fantastic opportunity to collect data with BIOPOLE project partners from AWI (Barbara Niehoff and Sinhué Torres-Valdes) and the Senckenberg Institute (Saskia Brix) which would span the breadth of BIOPOLE’s aims: to understand how nutrients and ecosystems in polar environments influence global primary productivity and carbon cycling from the surface to the seafloor.

With spectacular sea ice and blue skies, the BIOPOLE team worked seamlessly under the midnight sun to sample over 30 stations in just as many days. Katrin and Saskia used an epibenthic sled for the first time in the region to sample the sea-floor animal community; Sinhué and I used an auto-analyser to infer the inorganic and organic nutrient profile of hundreds of water samples; and under the guidance of Barbara, plankton nets were deployed to collect our favourite Arctic zooplankton – copepods. Furthermore, a BIOPOLE-funded Remote Access Sampler (RAS) was deployed as part of a mooring array in the outflowing East Greenland Current, complementing others deployed in the inflowing West Spitsbergen Current.

The data collected will contribute to BIOPOLE work packages 2 and 3. Analysing the nutrient make-up of water flowing out of the Arctic is fundamental to the aims of WP3, and the strategic placement of the HAUSGARTEN stations and RAS will help provide high resolution spatial and temporal coverage within this key Atlantic gateway area. A key aim of WP2 is to refine our understanding of the lipid pump, a process driven primarily by the seasonal vertical migration of polar Calanus copepods. One understudied aspect of this process is the interaction between Calanus and the benthic community. The epi-benthic sled allows for simultaneous sampling of these two communities and subsequent elemental and lipid analysis will offer new insights into bentho-pelagic connections.

Data aside, an important outcome from this expedition was the close interaction and teamwork between BIOPOLE members and partners which is set to continue through future cruises, data sharing and meetings. As an early career researcher, I’m incredibly grateful to the whole BIOPOLE and AWI/Hausgarten team for sharing their knowledge, skills and experience in many ways; from training me in chemical oceanography and mud-sieving, to helping with species identification and general navigation of working at sea. It was an incredibly enriching experience.

The whole BIOPOLE team would like to express our sincere thanks to the Captain Thomas Wunderlich, PSO Thomas Soltwedel, and all scientists and crew for their wonderful support, hospitality and atmosphere on board. For more highlights (including polar bear encounters), read more on the Polarstern blog here.

Copepods were sampled, identified and imaged from the surface to over 5000m deep. Credit: Jen Freer

The author of the blog – Jen Freer (British Antarctic Survey)