Antarctic Lithodids (King Crabs): Climate Change and Threats to Antarctic Marine Ecosystems

• Main Author: Innes, Rachel
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: University of Canterbury 2016
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13833

Anthropogenic climate change resulting in warming of global oceanic temperatures will likely allow the entry of previously temperature-limited taxa onto the Antarctic shelf. Indigenous Antarctic shelf benthos have evolved in isolation for millennia with the absence of durophagous (shell crushing) predators a significant factor in their 'archaic' Paleozoic character. The potential consequences of an invasion by lithodids could have a devastating effect on the Antarctic shelf benthos, homogenising the ecosystem, contributing to the diminished global diversity of marine ecosystems. 14 species of invasive crab have already been recorded in Antarctic waters in previously unknown locations. Polar regions are considered particularly vulnerable in a changing climate and at risk from potential invasive species.