A wealth of tiny antarctic life »

Antarctica has a wealth of plants and wildlife, with myriad species waiting to be discovered, a new assessment published in Nature this week has found. Genetic studies have revealed that the species - many of them tiny - are as diverse as warmer ecosystems, and many of them are found only in specific regions of the continent. "In a recent expedition to the Weddell Sea, 674 marine species were found, 80 percent of which were new to science," said co-author, Dr Ceridwen Fraser, from The Australian National University. "Amongst the ice and rocks there are a massive number of species: in the sea, things like sea spiders, corals, worms and so on, and on land, springtails, mites, mosses and fungi. Many of these species are not found anywhere else on the planet. "There are now over 8,000 marine species documented, and genetic studies suggest there may be two to three times as many not yet found." The team of scientists, led by Monash University, along with colleagues from the British Antarctic Survey, University of Waikato in New Zealand and ANU, looked at how recent investigations have revealed the continent and surrounding ocean are rich in species. They are also very highly diversified into a variety of distinct ecological regions that differ greatly from each other.