EON

Warmer Arctic Waters Set Up Possible Transfer Of Species

British Columbia- In a bizarre turn of events, Canada may be in for an influx of different Pacific Ocean species, as a result of the extremely warm summer and melting of Arctic sea ice.

The polar cap region continues to experience a high level of ice melting, and it is believed that certain species that are found in the Pacific Ocean may attempt to migrate in routes that have been literally closed by ice for close to 3 million years.

University of California Marine ecologist Geerat Vermeji and Palentologist Peter Roopnarine of the California Academy of Sciences both collaborated on an article that is being published in the magazine Science.

The article is called “The coming Arctic Invasion,” and it talks about different species that are found in the Pacific Ocean that may encroach on Arctic habitat, such as Grizzly bears moving north into typical Polar Bear habitat, and other species will also try to move northward due to the extreme summer warming.

The last time that such a species invasion occurred was about 3.5 million years ago, when hundreds of marine and land creatures moved to the East from the Bering Sea and worked to colonize the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic polar region.