Life in Antarctica Relies on Shrinking Supply of Krill
These tiny crustaceans are a bellwether of climate change.
I had an appointment at the British Antarctic Survey station on the opposite side of King Edward Cove. I was to interview a marine ecologist working on krill. I did not want to be late.
The keystone of the South Georgia ecosystem, the secret to the miraculous abundance of wildlife on this stark, cold, windswept island—the foundation, indeed, for almost all vertebrate life in the Antarctic—is krill.
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are administered from the Falkland Islands as a British Overseas Territory, in which the little outpost of Grytviken is the only inhabited spot. The inhabitation is very marginal. In southern winter there are just eight staff members of the British Antarctic Survey, including a doctor, a government
