Preserving Penguins

Monitoring Antarctic wildlife plays a major role in understanding the effects climate change and an increasing number of fisheries have on the region.

At almost 14 million square km, the Antarctic is the largest single mass of ice on Earth and contains 90 per cent of the world’s freshwater. This environment plays a major role in climates and ocean currents so conserving it, and its ecology, is hugely important.

This research is just one part of the British Antarctic Survey’s latest programme, Polar Science for Planet Earth (PSPE). The aim is to predict how changes in environmental conditions like food availability and the general habitat will affect the distribution and survival of different species.

The most common bird on the continent is the penguin, with the six different species often living in colonies larger than some cities. They are also very sensitive to environmental changes, so if the sea-ice doesn’t break away or there is a lack of krill, the penguins’ main food source, they are unable to breed successfully.

Dr Tom Hart is monitoring penguin populations in the Antarctic by analysing their DNA to see how the different species move around the Southern Ocean.

Dr Hart said, “Over the last few decades the populations have changed rapidly – very broadly speaking those that like ice are doing badly, those that like rock are doing better.”

The monitoring of these, and other, Antarctic animals is imperative to understanding how climate change and over fishing affects them, and will allow us to develop ways to protect both them and their habitats.

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