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Antarctic krill
'Antarctic kril (Euphausia superba)'
2005
Uwe Kils
A close up photograph of an Antarctic krill.
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Species (or sub-species): Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba)
Species location and habitat: Southern Ocean
Conservation Status: LeastConcerned (IUCN Red List)
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Title: 'Antarctic kril (Euphausia superba)'
Creator: Uwe Kils
Date: 2005
Medium: Photography
Copyright: Creative Commons
This photograph gives a intimate look at the face of an Antarctic krill, a small crustacean, growing up to 6 centimeters long and weighing in at 2 grams. It is a member of a keystone species that is one of the most abundant animals according to their biomass, with around 500,000,000 metric tons of them living on Earth.
In searching the radically different face of this krill, the first thing one is likely drawn to are its eyes: somewhat cute compound eyes that sit out the front of its head on stalks, essential as they are to finding food, evading predators and the social communication needed to moving as a coordinated whole with other members of its swarm, a collective unit that can be as dense as 30,000 krill per cubic metre of water. Just behind the eyes, nestled in its transparent exoskeleton, is its light organ, a part of its body that can emit a bright biolumienscent yellowy-green light. The organ has a lens that is controlled by muscles, thus allowing a krill to focus and direct the light, for reasons unknown.
An Antarctic krill's life starts with a spawning, where a mother sprays out between 6,000-10,000 eggs that are fertalized by a male as they exit her body. The eggs then spend the next ten days sink all the way to the sea floor, typically about 2-3 kilometers below the surface. There, in the utter darkness, cold and under massive water pressure, the eggs hatch into what their first laval form, with only one eye, no body segments, nor limb buds. In this form, the being their 'developmental ascent', a three week long migration back to the surface, during which time they under go two further metamorphesis, growing much needed mouth pieces so they can eat when they arrive to the surface. Antarctic krill go through no less than twelve distinct larval states, only developing gonads in their second year, and with lifespans of between 5-7 years.
The photo shows a number of front legs held together in a feeding apparatus, a filtering system that enables them to scoop up phytoplankton, tiny algae that take their energy directly from the sun via photosynthesis, with vast assemblages of them existing in the waters around Antarctica. Importantly, Antarctic krill are very messy creatures. Not only do they shed their exoskeletons every two weeks, they are also messy eaters and rather inefficient digesters. This has the effect of transporting enormous amounts of plant and animal matter from the surface of the ocean down into the abyss, where it remains for the next thousand or so years, making krill a powerful agent of carbon sequestation, drivers of what is perhaps the largest biofeedback mechanism on the planet.
The main threat to Antarctic krill is ocean acidification, as carbon dioxide released by human activity is absorbed by the ocean water. Creatures that calficy shells from minerals in the water -- including crustaceans, shellfish, corals, starfish, urchins, fish larvae and an single-cell organisms known as foraminifera that live in chambered shells -- are vulnerable to increasing acidity, for the chemical reactions necessary to grow a shell become impossible in more acidic conditions. This combines with oceanic heating drastically reducing the pack ice under which krill feed during the Antarctic winter. If Antarctic krill cannot calsify their exoskeletons in an increasingly acidic ocean, then tremendous amounts of carbon will not be sequested, leading to a drastic acceleration of catastrophic climatic heating, as well as removing a key foundation of the web of life.
