AntArctic

Elephant seal pup (c) Michael Poliza

Photographer Michael Poliza took on the enviable task of traveling to the poles to take a series of stunning photographs for his book ANTARCTIC, produced by teNeues Books (www.teneues.com), and we were fortunate enough to receive a copy to review. The book is hard to describe except to say that if you have functioning eyeballs you will like it. It includes page after page of breathtaking, funny, and even touching photographs of the animals and landscapes of the polar regions. You'll probably have to tear yourself away from pictures of king penguins fighting over a female, fur seal pups with the tips of their tongues impishly protruding from their mouths, and petrel feeding frenzies. The images make the case for conservation of polar regions far better than I ever could, particularly since the book's large size makes the images seem all the more close and personal. My favorite is the the two-page photo of the yawning elephant seal pup. Poliza has done an excellent job capturing the wide range of Antarctic imagery - from towering icebergs to mundane midday naps - with skill.

The best part is that if you tweet about one of the photos from the book, you could win a free copy! Go to http://teneues.com/poliza/contest/. The book is truly amazing and I only wish I could give one to everyone who doesn't see why we need to worry about such faraway places.

Pristine Antarctica?

Antarctica's a big, frozen continent with hardly anyone living on it. So it should mostly be free of the pollution that often accompanies human settlements, right? Wrong. Many of the research stations in Antarctica are relatively crowded together - because there's not a lot of ice-free areas on the continent - and they don't adhere to best practices in disposing of their waste. Which means that some rather unwelcome visitors, like e. coli, have contaminated the environment. A recent study published in the journal Polar Research presented some rather sobering data on the extent of the problem. The study's author reports seeing things like untreated sewage being dumped directly into the ocean, despite the fact that national governments agreed to the Environment, or Madrid, Protocol years ago in order to curb just these kinds of abuses.

Some governments are working on the problem, which admittedly is expensive because doing anything in Antarctic is expensive. The colder climate of Antarctica means that pollution lingers longer, for a variety of reasons. Yet Antarctica is valued by researchers for its more pristine environment, so it behooves research programs to spend the money now to protect their magnificent outdoor lab for the future. After all, if it can be made to work in Antarctica, it'll work on the rest of the continents too - maybe researchers can prove to the rest of the world that it's possible to live well and not pollute.

Antarctica: The Global Warning

Check out these stunning photos posted over on NPR's The Picture Show blog - Antarctica: The Global Warning.

They're from photographer Sebastian Copeland's book of the same title. Copeland went to Antarctica to take one specific picture for a global campaign raising awareness of global warming, but ended up taking enough pictures for an entire book. You can check out more of the photos here. Copeland published the book as a way of sharing with the world the beauty and fragility of the Antarctic. Even if few people get to visit the Antarctic, anyone can enjoy the stunning imagery in Copeland's book.

How will animals respond to climate change?

One of the more difficult problems associated with climate change is trying to predict what will happen to animal species when temperatures increase. It is expected that there will be winners and losers. As with so many environmental issues, however, predictions about which species will prevail and which will struggle are useful almost more to humans than to the species themselves. Disruptions of ecosystems can cause enormous headaches for humans - think of zebra mussel infestations, suburban deer invasions, fire ant population increases. So although Antarctica is rather remote, a recent study examining the response of elephant seals to the a previous warming period in earth's history provides some interesting background for scientists to use in predicting how other species might fare in a warmer world. Thanks to the generous folks over at PLoS Genetics, you can read the entire article online if you choose.

The main findings of the study, which examined DNA from old elephant seal carcasses found on the Victoria Land Coast (VLC) in the Ross Sea (hooray for Antarctic weather and its remarkable preservation qualities), were that when the VLC became ice-free about 8,000 years ago, elephant seals quickly moved to the area from Macquarie Island. When the ice returned, some went back, but all departed from the Ross Sea. The researchers examined changes in mitochondrial DNA to determine changes in population diversity. Genetic diversity expanded quickly (within a few generations) after the a colony was established on the VLC. The implications for this are that species that are highly mobile, as elephant seals are, can respond quickly to changing habitat situations. Other species that are less mobile will probably not fare as well in the face of climate change. Their findings will be useful for researchers who try to predict how various species will react to climate change, and use those findings to develop conservation plans.

Also, it's pretty frickin' cool that they got so much usable DNA from 8,000 year old elephant seal remains.

The Economist's Special Ocean Report

I'm a little late to this, but The Economist published a great special report on the state of the world's oceans in late 2008. The series includes articles on declining fish stocks, ocean acidification, and promising ocean management techniques. The introductory article by John Grimond explains the problem quite well:

"Each of these phenomena would be bad enough on its own, but all appear to be linked, usually synergistically. Slaughter one species in the food web and you set off a chain of alterations above or below. Thus the near extinction of sea otters in the northern Pacific led to a proliferation of sea urchins, which then laid waste an entire kelp forest that had hitherto sustained its own ecosystem. If acidification kills tiny sea snails known as pteropods, as it is likely to, the Pacific salmon that feed upon these planktonic creatures may also die. Then other fish may move in, preventing the salmon from coming back, just as other species did when cod were all but fished out in Georges Bank, off New England."

The report doesn't paint a very pleasant picture - nor should it. At the risk of overwhelming the public with a cascade of complex problems, it is time for people to get serious about the problems faced by the ocean. Overfishing has become a commonly used word, yet politicians routinely ignore the recommendations of fisheries scientists because fishing restrictions would be unpopular. The problems caused by runoff from land are well-documented and have devastated once-productive regions, yet polluters protest the expense of preventing damage. What's really expensive is continuing to believe against all evidence that when it comes to the ocean we can toss in or take out whatever we please with no ramifications for human life.

Climate Change and Penguins

A new WWF report examining the potential impact of climate change on penguins determined that a 2 degree Celsius rise in temperature would significantly reduce populations of Emperor and Adelie penguins. The increase in temperature would reduce the extent of much of the ice on which penguins live. While some penguin species would be better able to adapt than others, climate change would clearly have serious consequences for Antarctic animals. The report primarily concentrates on the impact of reduced sea ice, and does not incorporate the impact of temperature increases on the Antarctic food chain. Thus, the effects of climate change on Antarctic animals could be even more severe than the report predicts. Read the press release here.