A report on workshop of Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study (CASES)

Abstract

The Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study (CASES) is an international scientific program led by Canadian scientists at Laval University collaborating with more than 10 countries including Canada, Japan and USA. This program is carried out to know ecological and biogeochemical processes in sea area of the Mackenzie shelf, continental margin, and Cape Bathurst polynya in Amundsen Gulf. The CASES will carry out an over-wintering cruise" for scientific observations in open polar seas from the beginning of September 2003 to the end of August 2004. The Japanese CASES team focused on specific strategies of over-wintering zooplankton and their possible role in the biogeochemical cycling and transport of biogenic material in those sea areas through the year, primarily because of insufficient information on ecological processes of overwintering zooplankton, such as copepods and microzooplankton.