Antarctic Southern Ocean is an important region for global
marine food webs and carbon cycling because of sea-ice formation and its unique
plankton ecosystem. The origin of its ecosystems can be traced back to the
emergence of the Antarctic ice sheets approximately 33.6 million years ago.
This discovery was made by an international team including scientists from the
Goethe University and the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in
Frankfurt, Germany. Their study, published today in Science, shows that the
development of the sea-ice ecosystem possibly triggered further adaptation and
evolution of larger organisms such as baleen whales and penguins
The scientists analysed sediment samples from drill cores on
the seafloor, which were obtained in 2010 off the coast of Antarctica, as part
of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). The cores reach nearly 1000
meters beneath the seafloor and provide new insights into a long gone past.