The Nemo Hypothesis Helps Explain Ice Fauna Survival

ScienceDaily reports on the melting sea ice in the Arctic and its effects on Apherusa glacialis, a small crustacean that was once thought to die after its habitat—the sea ice—melted away. The University of Delaware’s Marine Science director Mark Moline along with Norwegian colleagues were making a research trip at night to the Fram Strait and Eurasian section of the Arctic Ocean when they discovered  the small shrimp-looking crustaceans “well below the sea ice.”  The scientist hypothesized that “part of [the crustacean’s] life cycles” was spent traveling on the North Atlantic Drift Current toward more habitable environments in the North Pole. Dubbed the “Nemo hypothesis” after the Disney movie, the theory helps explain the evolution of the crustacean and suggests an optimistic outcome for the species when Molina predicts an “Arctic Ocean potentially void of summer sea ice.” As he says, “[Our findings] also may ultimately change the perception of ice fauna as imminently threatened by the predicted disappearance of perennial sea ice.” Read more here!