I am Enric Sala leader of this National
Geographic Christine C’s expedition to
the Russian Arctic Franz Josef land is
home to 50 species of seabirds and
almost all of them depend on the ocean
for food
here on brush island we find a thriving
population of little auks they kind of
look like penguins that can fly there
must be thousands here they seem to be
adapting well to their changing
environment because of the lack of sea
ice in the summer they don’t have to fly
as far to find their food kind of
plankton but our study shows that the
average body mass of adult little logs
has decreased by four percent and we
don’t know why this is a plant on net it
captures small organisms like the
plankton the little auks eat biologist
Daria Marty Nova is keen to examine the
samples
this is plantain
plankton are tiny creatures that form
the bottom of the ocean food chain and
at an intricate part of the ecosystem
but Daria is finding something unusual
I’m focusing on plant ammonia
crustaceans she’s finding plankton known
to thrive in the Arctic Ocean but she’s
also found one here that comes from
farther south this one is warm water guy
it’s maids way north because of climate
change the problem is that the Atlantic
plankton
looks like the Arctic kind which is the
main food for the little arks receivers
cannot tell the difference but the warm
water plankton are smaller and provide
less energy for the little birds this
could account for the little auks
smaller body mass but it will take more
testing to know for certain what we do
know is that this is just one example of
how the environment is changing and we
have a lot more work to do to understand
what exactly the Arctic is becoming
Geographic Christine C’s expedition to
the Russian Arctic Franz Josef land is
home to 50 species of seabirds and
almost all of them depend on the ocean
for food
here on brush island we find a thriving
population of little auks they kind of
look like penguins that can fly there
must be thousands here they seem to be
adapting well to their changing
environment because of the lack of sea
ice in the summer they don’t have to fly
as far to find their food kind of
plankton but our study shows that the
average body mass of adult little logs
has decreased by four percent and we
don’t know why this is a plant on net it
captures small organisms like the
plankton the little auks eat biologist
Daria Marty Nova is keen to examine the
samples
this is plantain
plankton are tiny creatures that form
the bottom of the ocean food chain and
at an intricate part of the ecosystem
but Daria is finding something unusual
I’m focusing on plant ammonia
crustaceans she’s finding plankton known
to thrive in the Arctic Ocean but she’s
also found one here that comes from
farther south this one is warm water guy
it’s maids way north because of climate
change the problem is that the Atlantic
plankton
looks like the Arctic kind which is the
main food for the little arks receivers
cannot tell the difference but the warm
water plankton are smaller and provide
less energy for the little birds this
could account for the little auks
smaller body mass but it will take more
testing to know for certain what we do
know is that this is just one example of
how the environment is changing and we
have a lot more work to do to understand
what exactly the Arctic is becoming
Please follow and like us: