Recent investigations have shown the continent and surrounding ocean are rich in species, which are also very highly diversified into a variety of distinct ecological regions that differ greatly from each other.
“Most people think of the continent as a vast, icy waste, and the sea as uniformly populated by whales, seals, and penguins. But that’s simply not true,” said study leader professor Steven Chown of the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University.
“There’s much biodiversity on land, especially among the microorganisms, such as bacteria, and the seafloor is very rich in larger unusual species, such as sea spiders and isopods (the marine equivalents of slaters or wood lice). More than 8,000 species are known from the marine environment.”
Ceridwen Fraser, a co-author of the review from the Australian National University said: “Each area of the Antarctic also has very different groupings of species; while initially they may look the same, they are actually very different.”
