Cold Antarctic Animals

2002/09/13 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia
• Klima

If climate models announcing Earth warming are not wrong, thousands of species living at the bottom of the Antarctic sea will be at risk of extinction before the end of this century. This has been warned by British researchers working in Antarctica.

Studies by these experts have shown that most invertebrates that inhabit the frozen continent will not be able to thrive if the expected changes occur in the environment. Due to the warming, an increase in the ambient temperature of between 4 and 5 °C is expected. And the results of the study are conclusive: all the swarms, clams, isopods and other animals that were placed at the temperature to which it will arrive died.

Invertebrates apparently have limited oxygen distribution capacity in your body. By increasing the temperature of the area also increases the temperature of your body, you need more oxygen. But oxygen cannot reach all tissues, so they die with suffocation.

However, warming in Antarctica will be less harmful to other crustaceans. Thus, researchers believe that krill, food of many mammals and fish, will be able to advance.