Rob King

Small Krill Feed a Big Ocean

About the Speaker

Rob King is a marine biologist with 25 years’ experience undertaking research on Antarctic krill with the Australian Antarctic Division.  His focus has been on understanding living krill and he specialises in the creation of terrestrial and ship based aquarium systems for researching Antarctic krill. Such systems enable research on all life stages of Antarctic krill and extend the duration of experiments long beyond the two month duration of a Southern Ocean research voyage.  Recent research has focussed on the effects of ocean acidification on krill embryological development in the laboratory.  Field research includes undertaking research voyages to the Southern Ocean to both estimate the biomass of Antarctic krill for fisheries management and to deploy bespoke moorings to understand the behaviour of krill in swarms and to assess the importance of the sea floor habitat for krill during the intense seasonal environmental changes over the course of a year in the Antarctic.