日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

WORLD> Global General
Melting sea ice may doom emperor penguins
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-27 12:35

WASHINGTON - The world's largest penguins could be pushed to the brink of extinction by the end of this century due to the melting of Antarctic sea ice caused by global climate change, scientists said on Monday.

Emperor penguins, the species of these aquatic flightless birds featured in the Oscar-winning 2005 documentary "March of the Penguins," breed on Antarctic sea ice and dive from the sea ice to feed on krill, fish and squid.

Researchers led by biologists Stephanie Jenouvrier and Hal Caswell of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts used mathematical models to predict how climate warming and the resulting loss of sea ice would affect a big colony of emperor penguins at Terre Adelie, Antarctica.

Their models on average forecast a decline of 87 percent in the colony's population -- from the current 3,000 breeding pairs to 400 breeding pairs by 2100. But some models predicted the colony's population would plummet by at least 95 percent, placing the birds there at risk of extinction.

Terre Adelie is one of roughly 40 colonies of emperor penguins. The researchers viewed the fate of this colony as a possible example of what could happen to the entire species, now estimated at about 200,000 breeding pairs in all.

"Presumably, similar kinds of effects will happen in other colonies and other locations around Antarctica," Caswell said in a telephone interview, although he added that some colonies could be affected less dramatically by climate change.

"This is another example of the way in which climate change affects various factors of the habitat of animals adapted to live in really extreme conditions and puts populations at risk. It's very similar to the situation with the polar bears in the Arctic," Caswell said.

Polar bears, the world's largest bear species, also rely heavily on sea ice, albeit on the opposite end of the planet.

Emperor penguins live in some of the coldest conditions on Earth. They are the largest of the world's penguins, weighing up to about 90 pounds (40 kg) and standing up to about 3.8 feet (1.15 meters) tall. They dive to depths of 1,800 feet (550 meters) and hold their breath for up to 22 minutes.

"I hope people will be sensitized by the effect of climate change on such a charismatic species and realize there are strong ecological consequences of climate change," Jenouvrier, whose findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a telephone interview.

The researchers used climate projections by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and also took into account how emperor penguins were affected by past fluctuations in their sea ice environment.

Since the 1960s, the number of emperor penguins in his colony already has dropped by half, Caswell said.

主站蜘蛛池模板: 日本理伦片午夜理伦片 | 骚婷婷| 国产精品久久久久国产a级 在线毛片观看 | 一区二区免费在线观看 | 欧日韩一区二区三区 | 久久精品视频18 | 免费在线观看www | 欧美一区在线视频 | 夜夜嗨av一区二区三区 | 国产精品久久久精品 | 精品国产欧美一区二区三区成人 | 黄色国产在线观看 | 精品久久久网站 | 在线观看黄色小视频 | 欧美视频中文字幕 | 一区二区三区免费 | 欧美激情一区在线 | 亚洲国产123 | 亚洲精品1 | 欧美一区久久 | 中文字幕网站在线观看 | 天天干天天色天天射 | 日韩 欧美 亚洲 | 免费激情网 | 国模大胆一区二区三区 | 羞羞免费视频 | 中文字幕一区在线观看 | 国产黄色免费大片 | 欧洲三级在线 | 免费av在 | av网址导航 | 久久久久国产精品视频 | 伊人精品在线观看 | 欧美久久久久久久久 | 色月丁香 | 日本黄色网址大全 | 国产69久久精品成人看 | 国产视频在线一区 | 麻豆久久久久 | 免费观看成人毛片 | 国产成人精品毛片 |