To mitigate the impact of warming on polar ecosystems and manage these unique habitats sustainably, a concerted effort is required. Polar regions contain vast, undiscovered biodiversity, but they are also the world’s most threatened and least understood regions.
Scientists led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) are now calling for a polar ecosystem roadmap to fill that knowledge gap, preserve polar life, and even protect “our everyday life and our planet’s health.” The research would map all biodiversity in those areas, from the atmosphere to the deep sea, and from land to sea.
According to the authors, coordinated action is required to mitigate the impact of warming on polar ecosystems through conservation efforts, to sustainably manage these unique habitats and their ecosystem services, and to sustainably bioprospect for novel genes and compounds for societal benefit.
The paper, titled ‘Multi-omics for studying and understanding polar life,’ was published in Nature Communications today. UEA, BAS, and the University of Bielefeld in Germany collaborated on the paper.
Biodiversity projections for the polar regions can only be reliably constructed if we have a sufficiently profound understanding of the diversity, ecological functions, and interrelations of polar organisms, as well as their resilience to climate change.
Prof Thomas Mock
Polar ecosystems face the greatest threat because they are the most vulnerable to global warming. They are rapidly disappearing, along with all the biology that provides ecosystem services and biology-driven climate regulation, including the carbon cycle.
Prof Thomas Mock, Professor of Marine Microbiology in UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, is the joint lead author with Prof Melody Clark, Project Leader for the British Antarctic Survey.
Prof Thomas Mock said: “Biodiversity projections for the polar regions can only be reliably constructed if we have a sufficiently profound understanding of the diversity, ecological functions, and interrelations of polar organisms, as well as their resilience to climate change.”
“These remote regions play significant, but often overlooked, roles in the carbon cycle, driving global nutrient and dissolved organic matter fluxes.” As a result, polar environmental and ecological processes are inextricably linked with our daily lives and the health of our planet, much of which is supported by endemic biota ranging from viruses to large animals. There is compelling evidence that climate-induced changes in the polar regions are already altering species distributions on land and at sea, with significant implications for ecosystem function.”
Some species have shifted poleward, which has a knock-on effect on the food chain. Polar life, from microbes to seals, whales, and polar bears, largely depends on overall low temperatures and a substantial snow and ice cover, which are experiencing the impacts of global warming.
Temperatures in the Arctic are rising at least four times faster than elsewhere, destabilizing the Arctic jet stream and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events in temperate regions such as heat waves, drought, and flooding.
On land, the release of millennia-old carbon stores, trace elements, nutrients, and potentially deep-frozen ancient viruses and pathogenic bacteria from melting permafrost and collapsing Arctic coastlines is dramatically altering ecological interactions and biogeochemistry. In the oceans, increased seasonal melting of sea ice stabilizes surface waters too much, reducing the amount of nutrients needed for primary production.
Similarly, the situation in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic continent is bleak, particularly for the Antarctic Peninsula, which has already experienced significant warming, increasing the loss of sea ice and glaciers.
The Southern Ocean absorbs three-quarters of all anthropogenic heat absorbed by the ocean and up to half of all carbon drawdown. It accounts for approximately 40% of global oceanic anthropogenic CO2 uptake and approximately 50% of total atmospheric uptake. Furthermore, carbon sequestration by organisms living in polar seas is likely the most significant natural negative feedback against climate change.
Climate impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in both the Arctic and Antarctic serve as a predictor of global warming consequences, including the persistence of biodiversity on Earth.
“Sequencing technologies have massively changed our ability to decipher how organisms work,” Prof Clark said. However, interest in polar biology has been relatively low, especially given the tens of thousands of species that live at the poles and are threatened by global warming. Understanding how a diverse range of strange organisms living in extreme cold can help answer global questions and provide tangible benefits to society. Failure to act now will result in a significant loss of knowledge about evolutionary adaptations to cold.”
Genomic screening not only allows for the identification of stressed populations, but it can also be used to monitor invasive species, allowing for early intervention.
“With the cold regions of our planet dwindling, there is a real imperative to obtain full genome sequences for diverse organisms inhabiting polar ecosystems, from the deep oceans to permafrost on land, for both the Arctic and Antarctic,” Prof Mock said. This will allow for a broader application of omics technologies to polar species, revolutionizing our understanding of cold-climate evolution and adaptive responses to a warming world.”
