Antarctic seas richer in life than Galapagos Islands, study claims

Seas surrounding an archipelago near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula are richer in animal life than the Galapagos Islands, challenging the notion that warm seas in tropical zones are higher in biodiversity, scientists claimed today. Much less is known about the South Orkney islands than the tropical islands that helped to shape Charles Darwin's thoughts about natural selection on his Beagle voyage. But according to a new study published today by the Journal of Biogeography, the sea around them is teeming with a huge variety of life. The survey disproves the notion that the waters in chilly polar regions have a much poorer variety of fauna."There has been a long-held belief that the tropics are rich and the polar regions are poor and mid-latitudes are somewhere in between," said Dr David Barnes at the British Antarctic Survey, who led the study, part of the international Census of Marine Life....

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