A new research project aims to protect the Southern Ocean ecosystem by focusing on Antarctic krill, known as a “keystone species” in the ecosystem.
Rising ocean temperatures are causing the krill’s habitat to shrink and it is "now essential to understand how they are adapting to climate change,"the researchers say.
To study how the animal is being impacted by the Anthropocene, researchers have developed “DNA probes” to identify important genes within the krill’s sequenced genome.
They aim to target 10,000 gene sequences, including those associated with the krill’s response to temperature.
They will then compare historic specimens in Britain’s Natural History Museum and krill collected more recently by the British Antarctic Survey to see how these genes have changed over the past century.
“it's hard to overstate just how important Antarctic krill are to the ecosystem”
Known as the KRILLGUARD initiative, it is being led by the British Natural History Museum with British Antarctic Survey and University of East Anglia as partners.
The project has been funded by Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation.
Dr Matt Clark, research leader at the Natural History Museum and senior member of the KRILLGUARD team, says “it's hard to overstate just how important Antarctic krill are to the ecosystem”.
“As many as 10% of them are fed on by whales alone, while many more are eaten by everything from sea birds to squid,” he says.
“As cold-water specialists, krill are vulnerable to the effects of the warming Southern Ocean. We hope that by improving our understanding of their genetics, we can find out more about their populations and support decisions to conserve this vital species,” he says.
Apart from being an important food source, krill play a key role in the carbon cycle removing up to 40 million tonnes annually.
They also have considerable commercial importance: the krill fishing industry has an annual catch value exceeding $200 million.
The project will also be researching whether the species comprises distinctive groups as opposed to one large population surrounding Antarctica.
This means that certain subpopulations which may be fished in open waters might be the ones better adapted to higher temperatures. If this is the case, krill’s ability to adapt to rising ocean temperatures might be hampered by removing the genes that enable this evolution.
The KRILLGUARD team will run a one-day workshop at Britain’s Natural History Museum, bringing together representatives of regulatory bodies responsible for marine life preservation to share the findings of the project.
