Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU

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The USGS Alaska Science Center seeks to provide financial assistance for research in the development and application of methods to define and quantify decadal-scale changes in the type, abundance, and spatial distribution of marine mammal sea ice habitats in the Arctic. The research will strive to pioneer new approaches to characterize sea ice habitats using integrated spatial and temporal assessments of geophysical data (such as ice concentration, motion, age, etc.), across a variety of geospatial scales. While the methodological developments of the research should have robust qualities for circumpolar application, analytical emphasis .should be placed on the western Arctic, i.e." the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Arctic sea ice is diminishing al an unprecedented and alarming rate. Nations worldwide have made significant investments in research to monitor and model the geophysical changes. Associated ecological changes, however, are more complex and less well studied. The research solicited here will help bridge the rapidly expanding body of geophysical knowledge with fundamental information needed to better understand the accompanying ecological consequences.

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