Arctic seabirds adapt to climate change
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - 07:31
in Earth & Climate
The planet is warming up, especially at the poles. How do organisms react to this rise in temperatures? An international team led by a CNRS researcher from the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology has shown that little auks, the most common seabirds in the Arctic, are adapting their fishing behavior to warming surface waters in the Greenland Sea. So far, their reproductive and survival rates have not been affected. However, further warming could threaten the species. This research, supported in particular by the French Polar Institute (IPEV) and a US-Norwegian program, is published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series dated May 21, 2012.