AI Article Synopsis
- The text discusses the unique habitat formed where polar ice sheets meet the ocean, specifically focusing on ice shelves that float over the sea.
- It highlights that the seabed beneath these ice shelves is largely unexplored and home to potentially numerous undiscovered species.
- The authors present findings from 2018, revealing impressive growth and survival of various benthic species under the Ekström Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea, based on their research from several boreholes.
Article Abstract
Where polar ice sheets meet the coast, they can flow into the sea as floating ice shelves. The seabed underneath is in complete darkness, and may be Earth's least known surface habitat. Few taxa there have been fully identified to named species (see Supplemental information) - remarkable for a habitat spanning nearly 1.6 million km. Glimpses of life there have come from cameras dropped through 10 boreholes, mainly at the three largest Antarctic ice shelves - the Ross (McMurdo), Filchner-Ronne and Amery. Pioneering studies of life under boreholes found distinct morphotypes of perhaps >50 species. Here, we report remarkable growth and persistence over thousands of years of benthic faunal species collected in 2018 from the seabed under the Ekström Ice Shelf (EIS), Weddell Sea.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.11.015 | DOI Listing |
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