Direct measurements of phytoplankton growth and grazing by micro- and mesozooplankton are one way to look at variability in trophic structure in our study region. 

The natural mysteries of the Kimberley, one of Australia's last pristine habitats, have been documented like never before thanks to a multi-million-dollar project.

If you have heard the old fisherman’s adage that “big bait catches big fish”, you may intuitively understand how ocean food webs operate...

Every year in the contemporary ocean, phytoplankton use energy from the sun to take up carbon, nutrients and trace elements, and to transform it into a staggering amount of about 50 billion tons of organic matter. This is referred to as the oceanic net primary production (NPP).

The Microbial Cell Sorting and Imaging or Micro-CSI is a mobile laboratory belonging to the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is being used on board RV Investigator.

The report, “Strategic Integrated Marine Science for the Kimberley Region”, released today by the Minister for Science Hon. Dave Kelly MLA could hold the key to answering global questions about how some ecosystems survive under extreme environmental conditions.

Studies of marine bio-optics are being conducted from the RV Investigator during the 110⁰ East voyage.

Phytoplankton can go through one or two generations (cell divisions) per day and are often eaten almost as fast as they divide, by protozoan grazers.

An important goal of this IIOE-2 voyage is to characterise the physical, chemical and biological properties of the waters and determine how they change from the temperate waters at the southern most stations to the northern most stations in the tropics.

Although inconspicuous, microbes are the most abundant and diverse organisms in the ocean.

During this voyage we are focusing our research efforts on nitrogen in particular, as this element is essential for all life forms on Earth.

Aboard the RV Investigator we are approaching the middle stations along our 110°E line and have proceeded from cool, temperate waters to warmer more subtropical waters.

Travelling the deep water of the south-east Indian Ocean with several daily sonobuoy deployments, the most prevalent acoustic detections by the Jenners so far, have been pygmy blue whale calls. 

Deep-sea fishes reside at depths greater than 200 m beyond the effective influence of sunlight for most of the time.

Living in the clear waters of the open ocean is a dangerous business when you are a small swimming organism because there is nowhere to hide from predators.