How Greenland fauna adapts to world warming | EUROtoday

“C‘was exceptional, ”Ghislain Bardout, polar explorer. In 2014, during the Under the Pole II expedition, he was in Qaanaaq bay, a Boréal summer day, when his team meets the rare Greenland shark. A strange creature that this predator and scavenger which can reach 7 meters in length. He lives where no one is going: in the coldest waters (between – 1 and 4 degrees), the deepest and darkest, where he adapted.

Some live up to 400 years. One of these sharks had to slip into the water when the United States was created … It moves just enough. In summer, he has a deep cost. In winter, it goes back a little. His blood transports nitrogen compounds which prevent his fabrics from freeze. His sight is not terrible, but he compensates by a side line very sensitive to vibrations. Its flexible, almost gelatinous body cashes the abysmal pressure without breaking.

Forced waltz of species

Shark, bear, seals, sea birds … The Arctic is full of species shaped by extreme conditions, thanks to amazing physiological and behavioral mechanisms. On firm land, musk beef, a colossus cut in the ice age, tramples the icy tundra.

Its coat is a thermal armor: long hairs and, under them, qiviut, an insulating underlay, eight times warmer than sheep wool. When winter closes its fist, the musk beef slows down. Its large hooves scratch the snow crust to reach the vegetation.

Behind their apparent placidity, their bloods sometimes. In males, clashes are brutal. But, faced with the danger, the horde is welded. A circle is formed. The little ones, in the center. Adults, horns turned towards the enemy. Quiet strength and solidarity, the weapon against wild times.

This territory is heckled today. “The actual hazard is there, warns the explorer and physician Jean-Louis Étienne. Take the polar bear. It is a maritime animal, however it isn’t a great swimmer. He can solely seize a seal on the subject of breathe on the ice floe. However, the pack ice regresses, and its looking floor with it. It due to this fact goes up north. In this compelled waltz of species, a curiosity was born: the narluga, crossing of a male beluga and a feminine narval, as soon as separated by distinct territories.

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The kangaroo of the day

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Man additionally adapts. “When I returned from the North Pole alone, my body temperature had dropped to 35.5 degrees,” says Jean-Louis Étienne. My physique had the adaptive intelligence to decrease the thermostat. Just just like the shark or the musk beef, two animals that agree with the breath of the world.

Go again to the sources of life
Apart from its mining sources, the island homes sediments of invaluable worth, since they’re the oldest on the floor of the earth. “Alongside the ribs, we can read as in an open book the whole story of our planet or almost. To study the emergence of life, 3.7 billion years ago, this is where you have to go, ”enthuses Pierre Sans-Jofre, a researcher on the National Museum of Natural History and specialist in primitive land. In July, the Frenchman will embark for a brand new expedition with a view to carry again tons of of kilos of rocks to his laboratory: “By analyzing their chemical composition, we are going to decide whether or not the natural matter there’s of organic origin or not. In addition to his journeys to return in geological occasions, Pierre Sans-Jofre participates within the Greenlandia mission, who left within the footsteps of Commander Charcot. The new samples taken off Greenland, in the identical locations because the explorer within the late Nineteen Twenties, will give the exact measurement of the modifications of the recent water content material off the island, witnesses of the accelerated melting of the ice. Caroline Tourbe