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T he antarctic marine ecosystem-the assem-blage of plants, animals, ocean, sea ice, and island components south of the Antarctic Convergenceis among the largest readily defined ecosystems on Earth (36 X 106 km2)(Hedgpeth, 1977; Petit et al., 1991). This ecosystem is composed of an intercon-nected system of functionally distinct hydro-graphic and biogeochemical subdivisions (Treguer and Jacques, 1992) and includes open ocean, frontal regions, shelf-slope waters, sea ice, and marginal ice zones. Oceanic, atmospheric, and bio-geochemical processes within this system are thought to be globally significant, have been infrequently studied, and äre poorly understood relative to more accessible marine ecosystems (Harris and Stonehouse, 1991; Johannessen et al., 1994). The Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (Palmer LTER) area west of the Antarctic Peninsula (Fig. la) is a complex combination of a …