Chinese scientists look to Antarctic krill for climate change clues
- The team aboard the Xuelong 2 polar icebreaker will collect data on the crustaceans, which play a vital role in the South Pole’s food chain
- A leading scientist on the mission said the information would help in analysing their response to global warming and help protect the ecosystem
There are hundreds of millions of krill in the Southern Ocean, the world’s largest biomass of wild animal species, and the tiny protein-rich crustaceans play a vital role in the food chain.
Seals, penguins, whales and seabirds all primarily feed on them, and changes in their numbers have a significant impact on the wider ecosystem.
In the first Chinese project of its kind, the expedition team on board the research vessel Xuelong 2, which means Snow Dragon, placed a set of ecological subsurface mooring buoys in the Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica on Saturday, the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported.
The buoys sank to a depth of about 3,000 metres (9,840ft) and will collect data and pictures before being collected a year later. They form part of the first Chinese network of its kind in Antarctica.