There is much to be learned about the salps that occur in the waters around Antarctica. The most common species of salp in these very cold waters (temperatures near freezing year round) does not occur anywhere else in the world.

The emphasis of our study is to measure rates for several important processes including:
respiration - consumption of oxygen
feeding - removal of particulate matter from the water
defecation - release of undigested material
reproduction - the number of aggregates released as chains by the solitaries. Also the percentage of aggregates that contain embryonic solitaries.

We also will relate the distribution of salps with the quantity and quality of particulates in the water, in order to better understand important factors controlling salp abundance.

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