Climate Change: King Crabs May Threaten Antarctic Ecosystem as Predators

King crabs may be threatening the Antarctic marine ecosystem. Scientists have found that these crabs may soon become high-level predators in Antarctic marine ecosystems where they haven't played a role in tens of millions of years.

Temperatures are rising in the ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula. In fact, this is one of the most rapidly warming places on the planet. These temperatures should, in fact, make it possible for king crab populations to move to the shallow continental shelf from their current deep-sea habitat within the next several decades.

"Because other creatures on the continental shelf have evolved without shell-crushing predators, if the crabs moved in they could radically restructure the ecosystem," said Richard Aronson, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In this latest study, the researchers used an underwater camera sled to document a reproductive population of the crabs for the first time on the continental slop off Marguerite Bay on the western Antarctic Peninsula. This area is only a few hundred meters deeper than the continental shelf where the delicate ecosystem flourishes.

In fact, the overall effect of the migration of king crabs to shallower waters could be to make the unique Antarctic ecosystem much more like ecosystems in other areas of the globe. This process is called biotic homogenization. These changes would fundamentally alter the Antarctic sea-floor ecosystem and diminish the diversity of marine ecosystems globally.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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