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Swarming and Behaviour in Antarctic Krill

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Biology and Ecology of Antarctic Krill

Part of the book series: Advances in Polar Ecology ((AVPE))

Abstract

The behavioural ecology of Antarctic krill is dominated by their tendency to swarm. They form amongst the largest monospecific aggregations of biomass in the animal kingdom, with some swarms measuring up to 100 km2 and containing 2 million tonnes of krill. Swarms come in a multitude of shapes and sizes, and a greater understanding of the functional attributes of different swarm types is starting to emerge. This chapter will consider the spectrum of krill-swarms and -schools that have been described and some of the latest approaches taken to understand their shape and formation. The fundamental needs to avoid predation, feed, mate and spawn have often been attributed to being a major influence on swarming and we will examine these behaviours and their wider impacts. This chapter also considers how krill position themselves in the water column, altering their depth over diel and seasonal cycles, with further levels of modification depending on the environmental context. The ability of krill to migrate large distances is a major ecological feature of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, affecting the productivity of both planktonic and upper-trophic level communities, and we consider how such migrations are driven at the level of the swarm. New technologies are emerging that are providing previously unreported krill behaviours and we assess the future potential of these technologies to develop an even deeper appreciation of krill ethology. Also, we assess what impact predicted changes to the Southern Ocean environment will have on krill behavioural traits.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to R. Kornelliusson, K. Schmidt, D. Guihen and S. Kawaguchi for their permission to reproduce their figures within this review. GAT and SF were supported by the Ecosystems programme at the British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council.

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  1. British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, High Cross, Madingley Rd, Cambridge, CB3 0ET, UK

    Geraint A. Tarling & Sophie Fielding

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Correspondence to Geraint A. Tarling .

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    Volker Siegel

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Tarling, G.A., Fielding, S. (2016). Swarming and Behaviour in Antarctic Krill. In: Siegel, V. (eds) Biology and Ecology of Antarctic Krill. Advances in Polar Ecology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29279-3_8

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