Two researchers from the Center for Marine Sciences (CCMar) of the University of Algarve (UAlg) will head to the extreme south of the planet to study the local fauna. It will be a long trip to study adaptation. to climate change of a species of fish that live in very cold waters, a study that can contribute to the work that is already being developed by CCMar, assured Adelino Canário and Pedro Guerreiro.
The two scientists are going to develop the “Fishwarm” project in Antarctica, within the scope of the Portuguese Polar Program (Propolar), and should arrive at King George Island on the 26th of this month. They will stay on this island for 77 days, about two and a half months, housed in a Polish base.
The arrival of Algarve scientists also marks a step forward in the national research program in the Poles. The flight that will take the two CCMar researchers will give "a ride" to more than a hundred researchers of different nationalities and was chartered by Portugal, financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology.
Adelino Canário and Pedro Guerreiro were the guests of the radio program CRIA FM, jointly organized by Sul Informação and by Rádio Universitária do Algarve RUA FM.
According to Pedro Guerreiro, “there are several” extrapolations to our reality that can arise from experiences carried out in extreme environments.
“We are at a time when one of the main problems is climate change. We want to know how organisms in extreme environments adapt to these changes, if they become extinct or if they are able to change and evolve even better in other places”, said the CCMar researcher.
«What we are going to do there shows us the responsiveness of these animals and this can be extrapolated to what we do here. On the other hand, they were animals that evolved in a closed ecosystem for many years and that either lost some characteristics or gained others that our fauna does not have. Sometimes, there are mechanisms that we can't solve and, knowing how they are in other species, we can draw conclusions about what we see and study every day and we can't explain», summarized Pedro Guerreiro.
The species that CCMar researchers intend to focus their attention on is the Antarctic cod, a species that lives in waters with temperatures "between minus two degrees to more or less zero degrees".
“They've been living like this almost forever and if the temperature rises above three degrees, they won't be able to survive. Therefore, from a scientific point of view, it is important to understand how a species can withstand a certain temperature level», illustrated Adelino Canário.
And that is precisely what the «Fishwarm» project is based on. The two scientists will subject fish, which they themselves will have to capture, to various stimuli and situations, changing the temperature and salinity of the water in tanks for this purpose.
“The islands where we are going have an interesting feature. In the center of Antarctica, climate change is still not much felt, but in the area higher up, on the border, there are already much higher thermal amplitudes», added Pedro Guerreiro.
Portugal will offer flights to researchers from all over the world
The flight that will take Adelino Canário and Pedro Guerreiro from Chile to King George Island will be chartered "with Portuguese means" and will serve as a bargaining chip in the dynamics of unique global collaboration existing in Antarctica. This is the first time that Portugal has made a substantial logistical contribution to the international mission in the southernmost continent of the planet, something that “is very important for the country's international position”, according to Adelino Canário.
Since Portugal does not have a base in Antarctica, the many researchers already participating in Propolar are housed in infrastructures installed by other nations, in this case, a Polish base. On the other hand, he will not ask for money from any of the investigators who use the Punta Arenas (Chile) – King George Island – Punta Arenas flight that he has chartered, which may not even have any Polish investigator.
Antarctica is a continent that was considered, by an international convention, as a territory for peace, science and nature preservation. Hence the scientific missions of many countries that exist there. This classification also leads investigators to follow strict rules.
"No one can introduce or bring anything from Antarctica," explained the Algarve researchers. In other words, the «Fishwarm» team will have to take with them all the material they need, carry out in loco the experiences they can and bring what they took back to Portugal. Even with regard to the specimens that will need to be collected to carry out the experiments, there are very strict rules.
“Before we could do this project, we had to submit a form saying what we intended to do, how many animals we were going to capture and what species. All this has to be approved. There is a compromise between what is reasonable to do our work, without impacting the species», explained Pedro Guerreiro.
Also read the related articles:
In Antarctica, leisure is also mandatory
Heading to the poles is not always synonymous with intense cold
Photos of: Adelino Canary
Comments