Are Antarctic krill flexible or sensitive to rapid regional climate change?
The main population centre of Euphausia superba is in the southwest Atlantic sector, and this region is undergoing rapid warming and regional reduction of winter sea ice. Given the role of krill, both in fisheries and in the Antarctic food web, there is currently much interest in trying to predict how this species will respond to future change. Krill are often described as a stenothermal species and one whose population dynamic is highly sensitive to sea ice extent. On the other hand they are also described as an inherently flexible species, for example in terms of schooling behaviour, over-wintering mode or their ability to exploit a variety of food sources. Sensitivity and flexibility sound contradictory, so in this talk I will attempt to rationalise these two ways of looking at krill.
