Multibeam echosounder observations reveal interactions between Antarctic krill and air-breathing predators

Abstract

A multibeam echosounder (MBE) was deployed on an inflatable boat (length = 5.5 m) to observe swarms of Antarctic krill Euphausia superba in the nearshore environment off Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Visual observations of air-breathing predators, including penguins and fur seals, were made from the boat at the same time. MBEs extend the 2-dimensional acoustic observations that can be made with conventional vertical echosounders to 3 dimensions, enabling direct observation of the surface areas and volumes of entire krill swarms. Krill swarms exhibited a wide range of various size metrics (e.g. height, length and width) but only a narrow range of surface-area-to-volume ratios or 'roughnesses', suggesting that krill adopt a consistent group behavior to maintain swarm shape. The variation in R was investigated using generalized additive models (GAMs). GAMs indicated that the presence of air-breathing predators influenced swarm shape (R decreased as the range to predators decreased, and the swarms became more spherical), as did swarm nearest-neighbor distance (R decreased with increasing distance) and swarm position in the water column (R decreased in the upper 70% of the water column). Therefore, swarm shape appears to be influenced by a combination of behavioral responses to predator presence and environ- mental variables. MBEs have the potential to contribute much to studies of krill, and can provide data to improve our understanding of the behavior of krill in situ.