<h1>Write on the front</h1>
On November 1, 2019, the 38th Annual Meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) concluded in Hobart, Australia. As last year, no substantive progress has been made on Antarctic MPAs, one of the focus of the Conference, and none of the three existing MPA proposals have been adopted.
On November 1, 2019, the British newspaper The Guardian reported the news of the "eighth failure" of the CCAMLR protected area proposal (image from the guardian report screenshot)
Nonetheless, Antarctica remains the forefront of marine ecological conservation in the world to date. There are not only well-preserved natural ecological landscapes and unique and magnificent marine worlds that are inaccessible to people, but also the Ross Sea Reserve, the world's largest marine reserve.
In 2018, Greenpeace and scientists collaborated on a scientific expedition to Antarctica, which promoted the establishment of four specific sea areas of vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) based on the results of scientific expeditions, and collected a large number of images of seafloor organisms.
Today, we invite Wang Zipan, a pioneer in The Chinese Antarctic Scientific Expedition and the only polar scientist in China who has so far experienced an Antarctic ice sea diving expedition, to interpret for us the various antarctic seabed life and his understanding of the protection of the Antarctic marine ecology.
Professor Wang Zipan is the executive deputy director and researcher of the former Polar Ocean Research Office of the Second Institute of Oceanography of the Ministry of Natural Resources, an adjunct professor and doctoral supervisor of Wuhan University, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the University of Jena in Germany, a visiting researcher of the Alfred Weigner Institute of Polar and Oceanography (AWI) in Germany, an academic member of the Key Laboratory of Polar Ocean Processes and Global Ocean Change of ocean university of China, and the honorary title of "Advanced Individual in Polar Expeditions in China". As a senior polar expert, he has been engaged in polar environment and ecological protection research for 35 years, and has participated in expeditions to the North and South Poles 17 times, including many foreign research ships such as the Polar Star. He has published more than 100 academic papers in domestic and foreign academic journals.
In 1989, Wang Zipan took a photo at the ice sea diving site on the Christensen coast of the southeast pole
Author | Wang Zipan
The earth's oceans were born 4.6 billion years ago, and since then the cradle of life has given birth to all things. From the polar regions to the equator, the ocean world is full of life and has a variety of strange appearances.
Compared with the oceans in other regions, due to the harsh environment, human beings have long known little about the polar oceans, in people's imagination, only warm oceans can give birth to a variety of colorful, purple and red life worlds, and in the depths of the sea under the ice and snow of the two poles, I am afraid that there will not be many living things.
However, in recent decades, with the gradual expansion of the scope of polar sea exploration, especially in the depths of the Antarctic Ocean, many new species have been discovered, and the traditional concepts of the past are being revised by scientific new knowledge. The concept of Antarctic marine protection has also been further developed and improved in this process.
© Christian Åslund / Greenpeace
(Pictured: Antarctica's huge iceberg, its sub-sea surface is larger, and many secrets are hidden in the enticing blue color)
<h1>The Antarctic Seabed: The Fantastic "Garden of Life"</h1>
Antarctica is the coldest and most frequently snowstorm region in the world, and Antarctic waters are usually covered with vast ice floes and snow for more than half of the year (about 8-9 months). Despite the cold weather, from the surface of the sea to the bottom of the sea, there is a world of life full of fantasy scenes.
Under the surface ice floes, there is first a "subglacial grassland" made of green seaweed, where Antarctic krill overwinter and breed their offspring, and a variety of fish and shrimp shuttle through it, and are chased and preyed by birds, penguins and seals from the gap between the ice floes. The vitality under the ice is an incredible contrast with the cold wind and barren depression on the ice.
Pete Speller/Greenpeace, a crab-eating seal © in Antarctica
In the different layers of water beneath the sea ice, there are various fish such as silverfish and canine toothfish, cephalopods such as squid, as well as ferocious seals and huge cetaceans.
Further down, on the south pole seafloor, based on different types of geological structures, is also a living world of different species, communities and densities.
The substrate environment of the shallow surface of the Antarctic seafloor is usually dominated by soft mud substrate, sand and gravel mixed substrate or rocky hard substrate. Compared with rocks and sandstones, organic debris and particulate matter that settles to the seafloor are more easily mixed with the silt on the seabed to form a nutrient-rich soft bottom layer that provides the habitat and nutrients needed for life activities for a variety of benthic organisms, such as seaweeds, low-level single-celled animals, plants, and even large organisms.
Therefore, on the seabed of the soft mud layer of the substratum structure, it is easier to form a biological distribution landscape with more species and greater density. The three images below show the significant effects of three different geological structures on the variety and density of biological distribution.
(Pictured: The species and number of hard seafloor organisms are apparently relatively rare, for example, on a sinking rock, the organisms are sparse, the two larger are group primitive corals, and some lower sponges, and sometimes snaketail echinoderms to feed here.) ）
Sandy bottom ecological landscape on the seabed of the Ross Sea Shelf: Echinoderms + bivalves community structure (Image from NSF/USAP Steve Clabuesch)
Image courtesy of Greenpeace and species names annotated by the author
[Pictured: The soft mud substrate of the shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula presents a colorful animal world.] Numbering order in the figure: 1.Sponge 2.Ball sponge 3.Stick sponge 4.Sea pen (sea gill) 5.Gorgonian coral 6.50 wrist ring starfish 7.Snaketail 8 Sea cucumber 9.Glass sea squirt 10.Gorgonian coral group]
Based on the above figure, we can imagine an Antarctic benthic ecosystem and food chain structure of "big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp rice":
Worm nematodes, link animal polychaetes (sand silkworms), certain sea cucumbers and sea urchins, shellfish, and some isopods and crustaceans such as shrimps and crabs, etc., use the nutrient-rich soft mud substratum environment as their "comfort nest", which in turn attracts other carnivores that feed on them, such as some large shellfish, echinoderms (starfish, snaketails, sea cucumbers and sea lilies), as well as a variety of benthic fish, feeding on them.
Sea Lily © Greenpeace
And the Antarctic marine benthic animals that live in this food chain have evolved many "alternative" hunting arts over a long period of time:
Strength Player: Starfish with amazing wrist strength
Starfish are typical predators of the "weak predators", with their powerful brachiopods, which can be used to force the shell of the shell slowly apart with the suction cups on it, and then enjoy the delicious flesh inside the shell. Among them, the 50-wrist Antarctic ring starfish with a diameter of up to 50-60 cm after individual extension is recognized as the "biggest killer" of Antarctic shellfish and even benthic fish.
Fifty wrist ring starfish © Greenpeace
Smart Player #1: Conquer prey with slime
The predator killer of the Antarctic ctenophore is its two long tentacles that can be released from both sides of the regurgitated end, the sticky cells on the limbs of the tentacles make its surface full of mucus, and the small animals such as copepods swimming in the surrounding seawater cannot escape if they are accidentally stuck, becoming the "plate meal" of the Antarctic ctenophore.
Several Antarctic ctenophores are vying for copepod fleas that have been mucused together (author Antarctic experimental record image)
Ctenophores in the near-bottom water layer swim in search of food ©, Greenpeace
Smart Player No. 2: "Waiting for the Rabbit" with Venom
In addition to predators who rely on strength and wisdom to take the initiative, there are also some animals that choose to "wait for rabbits", such as hydra. The hydra's dancing tentacles are like fishing nets scattered in the sea, whether it is roe roe or water fleas, etc., once they touch these tentacles, they will be stuck, and then paralyzed by the "injectable agent" released by the hydra tentacles' stinging cells, and then the hydra will slowly devour the entire prey.
Smart Player No. 3: Comes with extraordinary antifreeze ability
On the icy bottom of the Ross Sea, the T. Bernage icefish lives, and the glycoprotein molecules in its blood contain a glycopeptide structure that prevents the growth of blood ice crystals, thereby maintaining blood circulation in the body to avoid its body from being frozen. This antifreeze property ensures that the fish can survive and maintain a certain vitality in the frozen environment, and can shuttle through the cracks of the ice, catching the coelenterates and small mollusks that they love to eat.
T. Bernage icefish devouring gill trolls (Image from SCAR-III Antarctic Biology Symposium Proceedings P442)
The above list is only the most distinctive of Antarctic marine life. There are more than 10,000 species of marine life living in the Antarctic ocean, and our existing knowledge is just the tip of the iceberg.
<h1>Unique and fragile polar seabed ecosystems are in dire need of protection</h1>
Now we have become more and more aware that there is a rich and colorful world under the surface of the Antarctic sea, and its seabed biological resources have important scientific research value. First of all, Antarctic biological resources contain many unique species, which are valuable gene banks; secondly, antarctic organisms adapt to the physiological and biochemical characteristics and antifreeze mechanisms of alpine environments, which have irreplaceable scientific value for life mechanism and genetic research; in addition, many Antarctic organisms such as Antarctic sponges can also extract natural medicines used to treat human cancer and other diseases.
As a result, human interest in polar ocean exploration, as well as the interests of commercial exploitation and fishing, have increased day by day, and Antarctic marine activities carried out by countries around the world in various guises have directly broken the tranquility of Antarctica.
Even if it is a non-development activity such as marine survey, there is inevitably an impact, especially the bottom trawling used in seabed sampling, the towing process will cause damage to a large area of marine bottom ecology, and the biological samples that have been included in the trawl, because in the process of towing and hoisting, continuous rolling and squeezing each other, serious damage, most of the samples become waste, when I participate in scientific expeditions, whenever I see this situation, I feel sad, should strictly limit the use of such bottom drag sampling equipment, and use sampling methods with little environmental impact.
© Paul Hilton / Greenpeace
(Pictured: Greek and Russian transshipment vessels operating in Antarctica, which take cargo from fishing vessels and transfer them to other destinations.) ）
Human influence on Antarctica is not limited to activities that occur only in the Antarctic region: man-made pollutants originating in other parts of the planet and various solid wastes have also been detected on the seafloor of different polar seas, posing a more practical threat to polar biological and environmental security, while the impact of global climate change on the polar marine environment is more profound and thorough:
The increase in ocean water temperature causes the animal to be uncomfortable with the ambient temperature, which in turn causes physiological and biochemical changes, and may even lead to changes in life processes;
Global warming leads to the brittleness of the Antarctic ice sheet, the collapse of the edge of the ice sheet, and even the collapse of the sea iceberg to produce a large number of ice bodies falling and impacting the seabed, causing direct damage and damage to the seabed ecological environment; a large number of icebergs sitting on the bottom will seriously damage the ecological structure of the soft mud layer, and even scrape the ecological structure layer that has been formed on the bedrock, fundamentally destroying the local habitat of the seabed and causing the biome to be stripped.
Even when these bottom icebergs are eliminated, soft mud layers begin to re-form, and various organisms can gradually "move back" in turn, for a unique and fragile ecosystem like Antarctica, the complete environmental and ecosystem restoration process will take years, decades or even centuries.
Prior to this, human beings had little understanding of the biological resources of the Antarctic seabed, both from the perspective of the coverage and frequency of the survey of the sea area. There are also quite a few sea areas that have never been set foot, let alone investigated and studied.
Based on this, the international community's call for the protection of the polar oceans and the antarctic seabed living resources is becoming increasingly strong. Marine protected areas are currently recognized as one of the most effective means.
<h1>Establish marine protected areas to protect Antarctica</h1>
Antarctica, as the forefront of global marine protection so far, is mainly undertaken by the members of the Antarctic Commission for the Conservation of Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), proposing and jointly exploring the conservation plan and corresponding specific measures for Antarctic marine living resources, one of the main elements of which is the establishment of marine protected areas in Antarctica.
However, in actual international activities, since the participating countries inevitably have to safeguard their respective national rights and interests as the basic principle, it is inevitable that differences of opinion will arise due to different interests. Discussions on major issues such as the establishment of marine protected areas often require a great deal of time for repeated exchanges and consultations and consensus to make decisions. Therefore, every achievement of CCAMLR on the issue of protected areas is very precious and difficult. In the case of the Ross Sea Reserve, the world's largest marine protected area, the negotiations took a long period of 5 years to finally reach.
Looking back at our understanding of the Antarctic ocean, what we thought was a barren polar ocean actually gave birth to a rich and unique system of life. Even today, with the rapid development of science and technology, our understanding of the ocean is still only a drop in the ocean. Therefore, in the long run, it is undoubtedly crucial to establish an effective global marine protection system that protects known areas of special ecological significance from human activities such as overfishing and seabed mining.
China officially became a member of CCAMLR in 2007 and has become an important force in participating in and deciding on the international negotiation process over the years. In April 2019, President Xi Jinping put forward the concept of "building a community with a shared future for the ocean", which is consistent with the concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains" that he actively advocates, and only by attaching importance to the protection of the global marine ecological environment can we bring sustainable development to the good and the good for all mankind. We look forward to China's continued contribution to the establishment of marine protected areas around the world in the future.
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