Extension Specialist studying krill die-off

• Winds. Mating swarms of krill at the surface may have been pushed ashore by strong storm winds.

• Low-oxygen waters may have contributed to the mortality event by driving masses of krill to shallower-than-normal waters, where oxygen levels are higher, but the animals are also more vulnerable to wind-driven currents.

• A krill pathogen or parasite could have played some role. Some krill have washed up alive, and there have been many reports of surprisingly little predation by birds.

Tyburczy has been gathering a variety of data from colleagues to help assemble a coherent picture of the conditions that might explain the krill deaths.

“The krill die-off is a puzzle,” Tyburczy said. “We can solve it only if we make use of ongoing, long-term monitoring data. It’s the monitoring data that can tell us what the ocean conditions were before, during and after the krill die-off.”

Some of his collaborators on the project are:

• Bill Peterson, a NOAA oceanographer and krill expert, who is studying krill samples

• Eric Bjorkstedt, a NOAA oceanographer, who has survey data on offshore krill abundances and ocean conditions in Northern California

• Frank Shaughnessy, a Humboldt State University professor, who collects regional weather and ocean data as part of the CeNCOOS (Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System) program, and

• Francis Chan and Jack Barth, Oregon State University researchers, who are sharing coastal ocean monitoring data collected through the PISCO (Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans) program.

The krill mortality event was first reported by The World. An Associated Press article has since been syndicated in several West Coast newspapers.

Read:

Key Species Mysteriously Dying off Oregon Coast – The World