It is a once in a lifetime research project for Professor Peter Bushnell. Bushnell, chair and associate professor of biology at IU South Bend, will spend five weeks on the ship Vaedderen traveling from Christchurch , New Zealand , around the Antarctic and disembarking in Valparaiso , Chile .
At least it will be spring. He will be there from Jan. 5 through Feb. 15, and the temperatures along the coast will be in the 30s.
He, along with fellow researcher John Steffensen, and other scientists are participating in Galathea 3, which is the largest Danish scientific expedition in more than 50 years. The highly anticipated trip, which is backed by the monarchy of Denmark , left in August for the Faroe Islands and Greenland and will conclude after circling the globe in April.
The ship has approximately room for 35 research scientists plus a dozen journalists, photographers, TV crew people and a couple of students and their teacher, along with a 50 member crew.
At this point, the cruise plan is a “work in progress,” according to Bushnell. The route has changed slightly and possibly more changes will occur later with weather conditions.
Galathea 1 set out in 1845 and returned in 1847. The purpose was to explore the Nicobar Islands (in the Bay of Bengal) to hand over the Danish colonies of Tranquebar and Frederiksnagore in India to the British East India Company, the expansion of the trade with China, and negotiation and conclusion of new trading contracts.
Galathea 2 sailed from Copenhagen on a grey October day in 1950 was welcomed home in June 1952. The second trip followed up on the research from the first.
As for their research, Bushnell and Steffensen will be studying icefish. They are unique for their blood does not contain the oxygen carrying pigment hemoglobin. The 16 or so species of the group of “white-blooded fish” are found in the Antarctic water. With the lack of hemoglobin, oxygen in the blood is dissolved in the plasma. Plasma can only carry one-tenth the amount of oxygen.
In order to provide enough oxygen to support metabolic needs of the tissue, the heart of the white-blooded fish must pump 10 times as much blood per minute. The research will focus on the cardiovascular anatomy and the physiology of white-blooded fish and how it differs from their red-blooded cousins.
They will perform a number of studies such as measuring blood volume and oxygen consumption of various tissues, as well as the whole animal. There will be anatomical study and quantifying physiological limitations associated with heart function.
The results will be compared to previous and concurrent experiments in other red-blood Antarctic fish, as well as polar cod and ice cod, which live in similar environment.
Since polar fish have evolved to live in very cold water (minus 1 degree C), increases in ocean temperature, due to global warming, could be devastating. The white-blooded fish are at particular risk as increasing temperature not only increases their resting oxygen consumption but concurrently reduces the amount of oxygen that can be carried in the plasma.
During the journey, scientists will be conducting their own research from core samples, to water samples and other wildlife research. Bushnell and Steffensen will have several days of intense research before the next stop in Chile .
“This was a chance that could not be passed up,” Bushnell said.
