KRILL DENSITY ESTIMATES IN CCAMLR SUBAREA 48.6 BASED ON ACOUSTIC DATA COLLECTED DURING JANUARY–MARCH 2008

A multidisciplinary survey was conducted with the RV ‘G.O. Sars’ as part of the Antarctic Krill and Ecosystem Studies (AKES) from January to March 2008. Acoustical data were sampled continuously on six frequencies along one west-east and two south-north transects between latitudes 50 and 66.4 S in the sparsely studied CCAMLR subarea 48.6. The mean density of Antarctic krill, integrated to 270 m depth was 4.42 g/m2. The krill were mainly found in strong aggregations and were patchily distributed. The majority of the detected krill was distributed between 40 and 80 m depth, and approximately 14 % was distributed within a 100 x 100 km core area centered around the Bouvetøya.