Tiny krill how to stir the climate problem?

Small shrimp stir climate problem

Beijing News "new known weekly krill are small, but because of the huge, becoming" the most weight on Earth's animals ".

They are also important "carbon burial '." Information pictures

Now, everyone is staring at Copenhagen — matter of well-being for all mankind, and are big, nature will attract everyone's attention.

However, the role of small shrimps and not necessarily as big man. Recent news on shrimp, noting that not many readers: at the beginning of this month, Commission for the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources approved our Antarctic krill for commercial fishing.

Concerned about the wild animals friends should all Antarctic krill (Euphausiasuperba) no stranger to this name.

At first glance, Antarctic krill with fresh shrimp do not, in fact, they belong to different purposes. Krill is crustacea Soft Armor pulmonata krill, and indeed the soft armor of Decapoda pulmonata.

Small shrimp can become climate? this is the case.

According to FAO statistics, Antarctic krill's total mass of approximately 5 million tonnes. According to the statistics, Antarctic krill well-deserved will sit on the Earth's most "heavy" oddities head to gold in the country. This 5 billion tonnes or a relatively conservative estimates, some scientists believe that the Antarctic krill total biomass may be as high as 100 million tons. Why is there such a large discrepancy? because we know the animal remains rather limited. Because of the unique climatic conditions, Antarctica, in its long cold polar night is not suitable for scientific investigation, therefore we only rely on summer research knowledge of krill enormous gaps still exist. Take the Antarctic krill's life history, our understanding or from 1962, United Kingdom a polar expedition ship surveys that still has its life cycle is called "hypothesis".

One thing is beyond doubt,

Antarctic krill in the Antarctic ecosystems play a vital role. It is the primary producers of food — — single cell phytoplankton, while its Predator is the planet's largest animal: King Emperor penguins, squid, Leopard seals, and whales are enormous. According to the United Kingdom scientist Miller and Hampton, every year only seals will eat about 100 million tons of Antarctic krill, a variety of whales eat approximately 30 million to 40 million tons. These animals choose krill as a staple food is very wise. In the food chain, from producer to consumer in primary consumer to secondary, every step forward, means a huge waste of energy. Shorten the length of the food chain is important for the survival of polar regions.

On the other hand, the "child" in the rectum of the Antarctic krill digestion capacity is not strong, it not only exhaust contains a large number do not digest food waste, and spits out some not digested food.

These wastes is rich in Silicon and carbon deposition in the seabed will be. If not, these krill uptake will surface in the ocean carbon cycle, so the Antarctic krill has played the role of carbon burial. High-latitude oceans per square meter per year can be absorbed from the atmosphere by 30-50 grams of carbon to converted into biomass. Look this quantity is not great, but if you will be multiplied by the great sea area, the result is that the Antarctic ice cold seas in the carbon cycle in the role of carbon sequestration or even over the tropical rain forest. Therefore, little krill help bury carbon is astronomical. However, the details are not as we know.

More bad news is that although the Antarctic krill, day by day in order to reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, its own silence work became a victim of global warming.

In 2005, GE Laurent wire (LizaGross) in the public library of Science-Biology in the article said that in recent decades, Antarctic krill population has fallen by 80%, thismay be due to a decrease in the coastal Chukchi. The ice is the larval krill kindergarten.

In marine fisheries resources are exhausted today, people turn our gaze to the Antarctic krill that large numbers of them are the inexhaustible Treasury of protein.

Or the master of our mouth, once the krill fell down, shake will be the cornerstone of the entire ecosystem.

□ Lean camel (Shandong biological researchers)