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Context: Greater conservation efforts are needed to protect Antarctic ecosystems, and the populations of up to 97 per cent of land-based Antarctic species could decline by 2100 if we don’t change tack, a new research has found.

Details:

• The study also found just USD 23 million per year would be enough to implement ten key strategies to reduce threats to Antarctica’s biodiversity.
• This relatively small sum would benefit up to 84% of terrestrial bird, mammal, and plant groups.
• Limiting global warming is the most effective way to secure their future.
• Antarctica’s land-based species have adapted to survive the coldest, windiest, highest, driest continent on Earth.
• Antarctica provides priceless services to the planet and humankind. It helps regulate the global climate by driving atmospheric circulation and ocean currents, and absorbing heat and carbon dioxide. Antarctica even drives weather patterns in Australia.
• The emperor penguin relies on ice for breeding, and is the most vulnerable of Antarctica’s species. In the worst-case scenario, the emperor penguin is at risk of extinction by 2100 – the only species in our study facing this fate.

About Emperor penguin:

• Scientific name: Aptenodytes forsteri.
• Wild Emperor penguins are only found in Antarctica.
• It is the largest member of the penguin order(Sphenisciformes), which is known for its stately demeanor and black-and-white coloration.
• It is also the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species.
• on ice shelves and landfast ice along the coastline of Antarctica.
• Its diet consists primarily of fish, but also includes crustaceans, such as krill, and cephalopods, such as squid.
• They endure temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius and wind speeds approaching 144 kilometers per hour by huddling together in groups of several thousand birds.
• But they can’t survive without sufficient sea ice.
• The penguins breed on fast ice, which is sea ice attached to land.
• Sea ice is also important for resting, during their annual moult and to escape from predators.
• Emperor penguins are capable of diving to depths of approximately 550 metres (1,800 feet) in search of food; they are the world’s deepest-diving birds.
• It has several adaptations to facilitate this, including an unusually structured haemoglobin to allow it to function at low oxygen levels, solid bones, the ability to reduce its metabolism and shut down non-essential organ functions.
• The greatest threat emperor penguins face is climate change.
• IUCN Conservation status: Near threatened
• Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds.They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere, with only one species, the Galapagos penguin, found north of the equator.
• Every year the 25th of April is observed as World Penguin Day.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-climate/antarctica-emperor-penguins-extinct-2100-8343481/

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