Big Trouble for Little Birds

Enric: I am Enric Sala, leader of this National Geographic Pristine Seas expedition to the Russian Arctic. Franz Josef Land is home to 50 species of seabirds, and almost all of them depend on the ocean for food. Here on Brosch Island, we find a thriving population of Little Auks. They kind of look like penguins that can fly. There must be 1000s here. They seem to be adapting well to their changing environment. Because of the lack of sea ice, they don’t have to fly as far to find their food, a kind of plankton. But our study shows that the average body mass of adult little auks has decreased by 4%, and we don’t know why.

This is a plankton net. It captures small organisms, like the plankton the little auks eat. Biologist Daria Martinova is keen to examine the samples.

Plankton are tiny creatures that form the bottom of the food chain, and are an intricate part of the ecosystem.

But Daria is finding something unusual.

Daria: I'm focusing on planktonic crustaceans:

Enric: She’s finding plankton known to thrive in the Arctic Ocean. But she’s also found one here that comes from further south —in the Atlantic.

Daria: This one is warm water guy.

Enric: It’s made its way north because of climate change.

The problem is that the Atlantic plankton looks like the Arctic kind—which is the main food for the little auks.

The seabirds can’t tell the difference.

But the warm water plankton are smaller; and provide less energy for the little birds. This could account for the little auk’s smaller body mass, but it’ll take more testing to know for certain. What we do know is that this is just one example of how the environment is changing and we have a lot more work to do to understand what exactly the Arctic is becoming.