UTMSI researchers awarded $1 million grant for Arctic work

Port Aransas scientist Ken Dunton stands on the deck of a boat during a research expedition in the Arctic Ocean earlier this year. COURTESY PHOTO Two Port Aransas scientists have been awarded a $1 million grant to pursue research that’s expected to aid in the world’s understanding of coastal ecosystems in the Arctic Ocean.

The National Science Foundation grant will fund research by Ken Dunton, a professor of marine science, and Jim Mc- Clelland, an assistant professor of marine science. Both work at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute. They will collaborate with Byron Crump, a scientist at the University of Maryland, according to a news release issued by the University of Texas.

The research will be conducted over the course of two years in an Arctic area known as the Beaufort Sea, with some of the work being done during periods when ice covers the area, Dunton said. The work will be somewhat groundbreaking, because field research in the Arctic normally is done during the warmer part of the year, when little ice is present.

KEN DUNTON “Year-round work is critical to understanding how the Arctic really functions,” McClelland said.

Dunton and McClelland believe organic matter from Arctic rivers and coastal erosion provide an important resource for marine animals, from the tiniest crustaceans to sea birds and whales. The research they’ll do with the grant could help explain that.

Even in the icy winter, “it’s not a dead environment,” McClelland said. “Something is supporting a vibrant food web.”

Dunton said he and McClelland are excited about getting the grant.

“It’s a project we envisioned several years ago,” Dunton said. “And, for me, I’ve wanted to do this work since I first arrived on the scene in the Beaufort region in 1980, when I was a graduate student.”

JIM MCCLELLAND When will they go? Dunton said they’re still working on logistics, but he’s fairly certain the first trip will be in 2012.

The scientists will work in the area of Barter Island and the village of Kaktovik, which has a population of about 300 Inupiaq Native Americans – Eskimos. Villagers will be helping Dunton and McClelland negotiate Arctic ice and study the area.

The researchers at times will conduct their operations on land and at times at sea, traveling at times by boat and at times by snowmobile. They’ll be collecting samples of water, plants, mud and tiny creatures that inhabit the mud.

Some of their collections will be accessed after cutting holes through ice that’s two feet thick.

By sampling plant and animal matter throughout the winter and summer, Dunton and McClelland will be able to paint a picture of where carbon and nitrogen are coming from and ending up. Results of the research will broadly apply to the world’s understanding of carbon cycling and climate change, Dunton said.

“Carbon cycling basically is the change in carbon from inorganic forms to organic forms and maybe back to inorganic forms,” Dunton said.

It’s important to understand how that happens “because carbon is a greenhouse gas, number one,” Dunton said. “And carbon is a building block for all organic matter. It’s what we are made of, it’s what plants make, and it’s what we eat.”

If Dunton and McClelland are correct about the role that the flow of nutrients from land to sea play in Arctic coastal food webs, then changes in those inputs will affect those ecosystems, which are already threatened by reduced ice and other impacts from climate change, the scientists said.

“These changes could also affect the local Inupiaq villages that depend on the coasts for subsistence,” Dunton said.

The scientists also will establish a summer field science program for native Kaktovik students at the middle school level.