A GROUP of isolated Antarctic islands has proven unexpectedly rich in life – home to more species of sea and land animals than the Galapagos Islands. The findings raise the issue of what effect climate change – already influencing the Antarctic – will have on this rich biodiversity.
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge and from the University of Hamburg in Germany carried out the first comprehensive biodiversity survey of the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. As well as surveying the islands themselves and deploying scuba divers,…
