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.
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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.
The waters are a key area for studying global warming and rising sea levels.
“The reason we chose this area to place the device is based on historical research data, which shows there are abundant krill. We can monitor the seasonal changes in krill over the course of a year with these sensors,” Wang Jinhui, the deputy leader of the expedition team, told state broadcaster CCTV.
“We can also analyse krill’s growth status and their response to climate change against the backdrop of global warming. This will further provide a scientific basis for China’s ecological protection in polar regions.”
A study published in 2022 concluded that previous climate events have had a significant impact on their population size.
There was a “drastic reduction” in their numbers 10 million years ago when temperatures in the Southern Ocean fell during the Ice Age, but around 100,000 years ago, their numbers rebounded as a larger area of sea ice – their natural habitat – formed.
The international team behind the research said it was not clear what impact climate change would have today.
“The habitat of krill [is likely to] shift to higher latitudes in these areas, but how climate change will impact krill population size and, consequently, the Antarctic ecosystem that depends on krill, are critical questions that need to be addressed urgently,” they wrote in a paper published in the journal Cell.
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Krill are highly adaptable in extreme conditions. They can go without food for up to 200 days and adults can shrink their body size when food is scarce.
They can also lay thousands of eggs that sink 1,000 to 2,000 metres into the ocean to hatch undisturbed, before the larvae float back to the surface.
