Arctic Invasion

New study shows that Arctic Ocean may be ‘invaded’ by microbes from tropics, affecting the ecosystem.

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Global Warming may cause the microscopic organisms habiting the polar regions of the Earth's oceans, such as the Arctic, to be slowly conquered by their counterparts from the tropical regions, affecting multiple ecosystems, according to two major studies which assessed more than 35,000 samples collected from all the world's oceans between 2009 and 2013.

The two studies, published in the journal Cell on Thursday, found that the diversity of microscopic organisms habiting the Earth's oceans are the least at the higher latitudes — nearer to the poles — and increase in a gradient towards the equator.

The two studies analysed the diversity of these organisms in samples collected from ocean water currents to predict how these communities might adapt to changing environmental conditions.