Climate Change To Allow King Crabs To Invade The Antarctica

“Because other creatures on the continental shelf have evolved without shell-crushing predators, if the crabs moved in they could radically restructure the ecosystem”, study lead author Richard Aronson, professor and head of biological sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology, said in a press release. King crabs could have devastating effects on soft-bodied inhabitants of Antarctic waters, they warn.

On Monday, a new study found that the conditions are set for king crabs invading the continental shelf located off the western peninsula of Antarctic. In recent years, one of the animals who did this is the king crab, which was observed living in the waters of Western Antarctica.

Due to climate change, temperatures are rising off the coast of Antarctica.

King crabs in general can not cope with temperatures that are colder than 34 degrees Fahrenheit or 1 degree Celsius.

In an attmept to get a full picture of what could happen if waters warm, researchers studied ocean salinity levels, types of sediments on the sea floor, and available food resources, but more critical data will be revealed after tracking their movements over time.

King crabs may be threatening the Antarctic marine ecosystem.

Aronson said that the most efficient predators in the region are invertebrates such as ribbon worms, starfish and a few species of spiders.

In the 2010-2011 Antarctic summer (which endures from October to February, the inverse of summer in the Northern half of the globe), scientists utilized a camera sled towed by the NSF research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer to record surprisingly a regenerative populace of lord crab on the mainland incline off Marguerite Bay.

While extremely cold temperatures have created a defense barrier for these creatures, the water is now warming up on and by the shelf. That location is only a few hundred metres deeper than the continental shelf where the delicate ecosystem flourishes. At depths of 2,800 to 7,500 feet, the crabs were found at 4.5 crabs per 10,000 square feet which can already be considered a large enough population. This was millions of years ago, but now everything will rewind rapidly and determine the crabs to come back to Antarctica, according to Aronson.