We Found King Crabs!

In studying the effects of climate change (warming ocean temperatures) on the ecology of the Antarctic seafloor, one organism that our research is particularly focused on is king crabs.

Because king crabs are one of the top predators on the Antarctic seafloor, they are a key species to observe when trying to study the dynamics of this ecosystem.  Additionally, in the face of warming water temperatures, they are a prime candidate to be able to move into new seafloor environments that were previously too cold for them to survive in.

Determining where king crab populations are, what depths they are living in, what they are eating, and what their physiology is like are all important pieces of information to collect for our research.

And in order to determine any of those things, we have to find king crabs.

And we did!

We have successfully photographed king crabs on the seafloor as well as collected live specimens! Each photo and specimen serves a very important purpose in completing our study and our team is very excited to have found these king crabs!

A snapshot of the seafloor reveals a king crab at 1,500 meters below the surface!

Live specimens were collected using the crab traps we prepared in Punta Arenas, Chile.

Each king crab collected can tell us so much about this population and the
dynamics between them and the other seafloor organisms.

We hope to be able to collect even more data on king crabs, as well as lots of other seafloor organisms, as we continue our Antarctic research expedition!  And we can't wait to share it with you!