Antarctica Food Web Fragile

From krill to killer whales penguins to phytoplankton this continents waters are teeming with life.

Antarctica food web fragile. Although there are no trees in and around antarctica more than 100 million birds nest and breed there. Antarctica food chains and food webs a simple antarctic food chain is the secret to the success of the baleen whales keep the chain short and transfer as much energy as possible as efficiently as possible. The loss of sea ice can ultimately affect the entire food web from algae and plankton to fish to mammals. If the ice melts all animals that live on it or rely on it for survival will become extinct.

Skip to navigation. I believe that it s called fragile because of how the ice is melting. By signing up you ll get thousands of step by step solutions to your homework questions. The pristine and fragile environment are required for the study.

Scientists believe the most serious dangers to the fragile antarctic food web are far more insidious and long lasting. This heavy reliance on a single species makes the antarctic ecosystem an unusually fragile one particularly since many animals including baleen whales such as the humpback fin minke and blue whales eat krill almost exclusively. For the first time scientists. You can also ask.

The findings raise concerns over the future of antarctica s fragile ecosystem which is already threatened by climate change. There are two reasons that they have managed to attain such enormous size well over a hundred tonnes for the largest blue whales and nearing this amount for some other whale species. The arctic food web is complex. Not only is the decline of sea ice impairing polar bear populations by reducing the extent of their primary habitat it is also negatively impacting them via food web effects.

Declines in the duration and extent of sea ice in. Whales are the largest animals ever to have lived larger even than the largest dinosaurs. A major food source for antarctic fish penguins pelagic seabirds seals and whales krill euphausia superba look like shrimp but weigh just a gram as adults and measure about six centimeters long figure 1. Antarctica is a fragile environment because it is pristine and mostly free from the effects of humans unlike most of planet earth.

Discover who eats who is eating in the antarctic food web. The impact of climate change on a particular species can ripple through a food web and affect a wide range of other organisms. Antarctica is fascinating from an ecological point of view. Why is antarctica fragile.

Whales seals penguins albatross petrels fish squid every animal species living in antarctica depends directly or indirectly on krill for survival. Despite the harshest environmental conditions on the.