Aug

7

2008
 
 

The ice-mollusc cometh



Pacific shellfish set to resume ancient Atlantic invasion as Arctic ice melts

Flying snails make good invadersWhen the Arctic ice finally melts away, by around 2050, a gang of North Pacific shellfish are going to finish something they started three and a half million years ago. Writing this week in Science, UC Davis geologist Geerat Vermeij and collaborator Peter Roopnarine argue that at least 56 molluscan lineages have the potential to expand their ranges across the Bering Strait into the North Atlantic. The fossil record shows that such an invasion was interrupted with the widespread establishment of permanent sea ice, a barrier we humans have successfully broken down over the last couple of hundred years. The authors urge us to “anticipate with interest” the molluscan army’s progress. That’s one way to look at a melting icecap… Source: Vermeij GJ & Roopnarine PD (2008) The coming Arctic invasion. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1160852

Image: © Russ Hopcroft | NOAA

Filed Under Climate change, Invasive species, Marine | 

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