Antarctic Marine Living Resources program The U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) program: 1996–1997 field season activities

he U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) program has developed and conducted a research plan tailored to the goals of the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), part of the Antarctic Treaty System. The Convention manages antarctic fisheries to conserve targeted species while also taking into account the impact fishing activities might have on other living organisms in the antarctic ecosystem. CCAMLR’s unique management regime has come to be known as the “ecosystem approach.” In keeping with CCAMLR’s mandate, the impact of the krill (Euphausia superba) fishery upon dependent predators must be understood. The AMLR program monitors finfish and krill fisheries, projects sustainable yields where possible, and formulates management advice and options. In addition, the program conducts field research with the long-term objective of describing the functional relationships between krill, their predators, and their environment. The field program is based on two working hypotheses: • Krill predators respond to changes in the availability of their food. • The distribution of krill is affected by both physical and biological aspects of their environment. In the previous eight seasons, the AMLR field program T