Dr Abigail Smith, Spatial Systems Ecologist, IMAS
Affiliation with the Antarctic Science Foundation
Assistant Ambassador for ASF on Antarctica Flights Season 2023/24
More About Abigail
Abigail undertook her PhD with the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, researching the distribution and bioavailability of iron (a key limiting nutrient) in Antarctic coastal environments. This work also explored the biogeochemical role of marine animals such as krill and baleen whales in recycling iron to productive coastlines.
Current Studies
Antarctic krill play an important role in Southern Ocean ecosystems, as a key component of the marine food web with an enormous circumpolar biomass. Krill are vulnerable to changes in their surrounding environment which is predicted to shift in future years. Abigail’s research focuses on the present drivers of krill distributions and how future environmental changes may influence this, with flow-on effects to the surrounding ecosystem. Her research uses novel bioacoustic tools, experiments and field observations collected from recent AAPP research voyages (including the recent Trends in Euphausiids off Mawson, Predators and Oceanography voyage) to explore these drivers.
Selected Publications:
Smith AJR, Wotherspoon SJ and Cox MJ (2023) Per-length biomass estimates of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). Front. Mar. Sci. 10:1107567. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2023.1107567
Smith AJR, Nelson T, Ratnarajah L, Genovese C, Westwood K, Holmes TM, Corkill M, Townsend AT,
Bell E, Wuttig K and Lannuzel D (2022). Identifying potential sources of iron-binding ligands in coastal Antarctic environments and the wider Southern Ocean. Mar. Sci. 9:948772