Date: Wed, 25 Jun, 1997
Global Warming threatens Whale's Favorite Food

LONDON (Reuter) - Global warming could be contributing to killing off krill, the favorite food of whales, penguins and other sea animals, scientists said Wednesday.

The tiny, shrimp-like creatures are being undermined by salps, according to Valerie Loeb of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Moss Landing, Calif. and colleagues.

Salps are tunicates -- simple, pouch-like sea creatures that are not eaten by many animals but which create dense blooms that interfere with krill reproduction and kill off their larvae.
"Our data suggest that decreased krill availability may affect the levels of their vertebrate predators. Regional warming and reduced krill abundance, therefore, affect the marine food web," they wrote in a report in the science journal Nature.

They noticed the salps flourished in years when there was less sea ice, while the krill, the primary food of many sea-going animals, did better in colder years.

The salps also seemed to eat up the krill's food in warmer years, they said.
"A warming trend has been documented for the Antarctic Peninsula region since the 1940s, and a decreased frequency of extensive winter sea-ice conditions has been associated with this trend," they wrote.

The krill population had already become noticeably smaller and predators could already be suffering, they said. Adelie penguins on King George Island had already suffered a 30 percent population decline.



Back to MENU