Boston: Global warming could make Antarctic waters more inviting to crabs and sharks that would threaten the frigid continent''''s
unique ecosystem, biologists warned. Antarctica''''s waters remain too cold for crabs, sharks and other fish to survive in, but global warming has already caused temperatures to increase by one to two degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, said University of Rhode Island biology professor Cheryl Wilga.
Few predators capable of
crushing shelled animals live in Antarctic waters, Wilga told a news
conference in Boston, Massachusetts. "As a result, the Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators," she said on the sidelines of the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks, and at the rate we''''re going, that could happen this century," Wilga said.
"Once they get there, it will completely change the ecology of the Antarctic benthic community," she said. Crabs have already gotten very close to the Antarctic ecosystem, said Sven Thatje of National Oceanography Center in Southampton, Britain, who warned of a potentially catastrophic situation.
"That would be a tragic loss for biodiversity in one of the last wild places on Earth," he said, warning that global warming could destroy Antarctica''''s marine life if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed.