In Antarctica, life thrives mainly in areas that are not covered by ice, and that occupy slightly less than 1% of the continent. However, climate change is causing the frozen masses to disappear from large areas of it, which could be colonized by indigenous species.
Now, a team of researchers from different British and Australian institutions, coordinated by ecologist Jasmine R. Lee, an expert in Conservation Sciences and Biodiversity from the University of Queensland, in the latter country, indicates that, in the worst of According to the scenarios envisaged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this space could increase by the end of the century by some 17,000 square kilometers, which is 25% more .
In a study published in the journal Nature , Lee and his collaborators point out that this phenomenon will occur for the most part in the Antarctic peninsula – some southern islands and part of the east coast will also be affected to a lesser extent – where they would end up being some isolated enclaves that are already ice-free connected.
The effect that such a thing will have on biodiversity is unclear. On the one hand, the formation of new habitats appears to be beneficial for the communities of living beings that populate the region. But these experts warn that this could also promote a process of biotic homogenization, in which the more specialized and less competitive species would disappear , and, on the contrary, the invasive ones would spread.
Scientists point out that it is necessary to carry out new long-term studies to clarify this issue.
