The Antarctic Ocean has an extremely cold climate with recorded temperatures as low as -93.2°C. Precipitation is low, averaging 166 mm per year. Life in the ocean includes seals, whales, penguins, and insects on land. Krill, phytoplankton, and baleen whales form a food chain, with arrows representing the flow of energy between trophic levels. Pollution such as plastics, acid rain, and overfishing threaten the Antarctic's ecosystems. Microplastics have been found throughout the ocean and snow, showing that even remote areas are contaminated.

1. Antarctic Ocean
Matías Ripoll, Lucía Caviglione, Anouk de Laferrere and Olivia Obligado
Task 1:
- choose an ocean to investigate and locate it in a World map.
- State information from the climate, temperature and rainfall.
- Which plants are found?
- Which animals are found?
Task 2:
- What do you understand by a food web?
- Choose a food web from your environment
- What do you understand by a food chain?
- Choose one food chain from the food web
- In your food chain:
a- label all the trophic levels
b- explain what do the arrows represent in the food web and food chain

3. TASK 1:
Climate
The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. The lowest air temperature record on
Antarctica was set on 21 July 1983, when −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) was observed at Vostok
Station. Satellite measurements have identified even lower ground temperatures, with −93.2
°C (−135.8 °F) having been observed at the cloud-free East Antarctic Plateau on 10 August
2010.
Temperature:
The lowest reliably measured temperature of a continuously occupied station on Earth of
−89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) was on 21 July 1983 at Vostok Station.For comparison, this is 10.7 °C
(19.3 °F) colder than subliming dry ice (at sea level pressure). The altitude of the location is
3,488 meters (11,444 feet).
The lowest recorded temperature of any location on Earth's surface at 81.8°S 63.5°E was
revised with new data in 2018 in nearly 100 locations, ranging from −93.2 °C (−135.8 °F) to
−98 °C (−144.4 °F).
Rainfall:
The total precipitation on Antarctica, averaged over the entire continent, is about 166
millimetres (6.5 inches) per year (Vaughan et al., J Climate, 1999).
Animals:
1. ​Seals
There are four types of seals that live in the waters surrounding Antarctica: leopard,
crabeater, Weddell, and southern elephant. All seals are fairly slow predators that hunt by
waiting in places their prey is likely to appear. Most of them are unlikely to pay humans much
mind at all—except for the leopard seal.
This seal, named for its characteristic spots, has been known to become aggressive with
humans in small boats. They're fierce predators and are perfectly happy to eat anything.
Although they don't attack humans often, it's best to give leopard seals a wide berth.
2. ​Whales
During the austral summer, Antarctic waters are full of many different types of whales looking
to eat fish, squid, and plankton. Killer whales are one of the species travelers might be able
to spot on their trip; these are the most aggressive and ambitious hunters, as their sights are
set on seals, seabirds, and even other whales. They're perfectly capable of taking down
creatures that are much larger than they are, provided they hunt in groups.
Despite being aggressive toward other wildlife, killer whales aren't known for attacking
humans in nature. Some killer whales in captivity have attacked their trainers, but generally
speaking, humans aren't at any particular risk around these creatures.

4. Other whale species that travel south for the summer include humpback, fin, and the largest
animal on earth, the blue whale.
3. ​Penguins
The world's favorite Antarctic creatures, penguins mostly eat krill and very small fish. They
spend most of their time in the water, but usually come on land to mate and raise their
chicks.
Although penguins in the region don't think of humans as a threat or a meal, it's still best to
exercise caution when around them. They're not shy around people, and may come right up
to you—still, they can and do bite, so it's wise to treat them the way you would any other wild
animal.
For more information, read our blog post, Meet the Penguins of Antarctica.
4. ​Bugs
Antarctica's only true land predators fall solidly under the "creepy-crawly" category. These
tiny bugs are fascinating because they're the only creatures that can survive on Antarctica's
surface. They handle the winter by going into hibernation—they stand perfectly still, and their
blood works to keep them from freezing. This mechanism allows them to make it through to
summer, when they get back to eating the smaller bugs.
5. ​The Others
While no land animals live in the surrounding ocean, the waters are home to an array of
animals that visitors on expeditions to Antarctica might not expect to see. From albatross
and leopard seals to the massive blue whale, these cold seas brim with life.
Plants:
There are lichens, (200 species) bryophytes (over 50 species of mosses and liverworts),
fungi and over 700 species of algae found in the Antarctic. Most of the algae are
single-celled oceanic plants called phytoplankton.
Two flowering plants (a grass and a small cushion-forming plant) are found on the northern
and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula.
TASK 2:
Food web:​ A food web (or food cycle) is the natural interconnection of food chains and a
graphical representation (usually an image) of what-eats-what in an ecological community​.

5. Food chain:
A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web starting from producer organisms and
ending at apex predator species, detritivores, or decomposer species. A food chain also
shows how the organisms are related with each other by the food they eat.
Baleen whales: ​first trophic level
Krill: ​second trophic level
Phytoplankton: ​third trophic level
Arrows on a food chain, or food web, represent the flow of energy. The placement of the
arrows in a food chain or food web is very important. The arrows always show the direction
of the energy as it is transferred from one organism to another.
Task 3: Population
- Define the term population
- How many populations are in your food web?
- State 4 causes that may affect populations
- Explain how a breakout of a disease in one named population in your food web
would affect the rest of the species,
- Explain one way in which technology would increase the production of plants, and its
effect on your food web.

6. Task 4: Pollution
- Describe acid rain, global warming, overfishing, eutrophication, raw sewage and
plastic pollution.
- Explain fully how plastics affect the ocean environment.
- Describe how these could be solved.
- Plan an activity to communicate and encourage people to beat plastic pollution.
TASK 3:
Population:​ a community of animals, plants, or humans among whose members
interbreeding occurs (between the same specie)
- In our food chain there are thirteen populations.
- Factors that affect populations are ​competition, predation, parasitism ​and disease.
- If there is a break out of a disease in one named population in our food web it could
affect the whole web. If one species in the food web ceases to exist, one or more
members in the rest of the chain could cease to exist too as they would not be able to
eat. However a plant or animal doesn't even have to become extinct to affect one of
its predators, but just has to contract the disease to infect them, which will later kill
them.
- New technology is being developed each second, therefore there are various
possibilities that any minute now a new fertilizer is being created which will help to
increase the production of plants. That way, herbivorous zooplankton would have
vast amounts of food, allowing them to reproduce in more quantities giving its
predators more food as well and so on.
Task 4
- Acid Rain:​ It is a rain fall made so acidic by atmospheric pollution that it causes
environmental harm, chiefly to forests and lakes. The main cause is the industrial
burning of coal and other fossil fuels, the waste gases which contain sulphur and
nitrogen oxides which combine with atmospheric water to form acids.
- Global Warming:​ A gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's
atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels
of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants.
- Overfishing:​ deplete the stock of fish in by excessive fishing.
- Eutrophication:​ it is the excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of
water, frequently due to run-off from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant
life.
- Raw sewage:​ Something that has not yet been processed or treated to separate and
remove contaminants.
- Plastic Pollution:​ Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles
in the Earth's environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat, and humans.

7. - In the Antarctic Ocean microplastics and chemicals are present, respectively, in the
water and snow samples that were took in the Antarctic during a recent expedition.
This reveals that even the ‘world’s last wilderness’ is contaminated with microplastic
waste and persistent hazardous chemicals. Some of the pollution was immediately
visible: waste was seen from the fishing industry floating in the waters such as buoys,
nets and tarpaulins drifting in between icebergs. Microplastics all along the ocean
show that the problem of pollution caused by plastic is so much bigger than just the
visible rubbish. It’s previously been thought that the ocean currents around the
Antarctic act as a kind of buffer zone, protecting the region from the plastic that is
polluting the rest of the world’s oceans. Plastic has now been found in all corners of
the ocean.
- Reduce Your Use of Single-Use Plastics.
- Recycle Properly.
- Participate In (or Organize) a Beach or River Cleanup.
- Support Bans.
- Avoid Products Containing Microbeads.
- Spread the Word.
- Support Organizations Addressing Plastic Pollution.
- An activity that might incite people to recycle and thus stop plastic pollution can be to
create a room or an open place trafficked by a lot of people and fill it with plastic trash
to the point at which it is almost impossible to walk. That way everyone would be
pissed. Then they will be told that that is how animals live in the ocean and probably
sooner than later there will be no more space in the ocean for plastic and we will be
living in the same dumpster in which they are.
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