The evolution and ecology of Antarctic sea floor communities
The evolution and ecology of Antarctic sea floor communities is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, led by Dr Rowan Whittle, looking at the past, present and future of life at …
Animal science
Hungry Humpbacks
Whales are the largest krill predators in the UK Overseas territory of South Georgia, yet their impacts on krill stocks are poorly understood. Recently, whale surveys revealed high summer abundance …
CONSEC
CONSEC is addressing the challenge to understand the links between the biodiversity, structure and function of Southern Ocean ecosystems and the impacts of rapid environmental changes to improve scientific knowledge …
Safeguarding Antarctic krill stocks for baleen whales
This Darwin Plus funded project aims to improve our understanding of how Antarctic krill, foraging whales and the krill fishery interact in space and time, to improve krill fishery management …
Gentoo Penguin Tracking
A fishery for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) operates over the shelf breaks of the South Orkney, South Shetland and South Georgia archipelagos [8]. Krill is an important food source for …
SO-AntEco Biodiversity
In this collaboration with the Natural History Museum (NHM) and the University of Liverpool, we have developed novel methods for using existing data to contribute to marine conservation and fisheries …
Long term monitoring of plastics
This long-term study monitors the impact of marine plastics and other debris on breeding seabirds at Bird Island. Researchers have monitored the levels of marine plastics and other material from …
ASCCC
The ASCCC Project has been funded by ACE (Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition) to investigate, quantify and understand the role of polar and subpolar seabeds in the carbon cycle, particularly in response …
Penguins and climate change
30 June, 2022
Introduction Reports suggest that climate change is putting some penguin species in peril. Scientists at British Antarctic Survey investigating long-term changes in penguin populations report what’s happening to these iconic …
Albatrosses
30 June, 2022
Introduction All but seven of the world’s 22 species of albatrosses are threatened with extinction. The main threats are incidental mortality (bycatch*) in commercial fisheries. British Antarctic Survey science and …
New science facility to unveil mysteries of animal life in Antarctica
30 January, 2024
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) will build a new unique science facility at its UK Cambridge headquarters, enabling scientists to understand how organisms that live in cold polar environments evolved …
BAS shortlisted for NERC’s 2023 Impact Awards
18 October, 2023
The shortlist has been announced for The Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) Impact Awards 2023. Four BAS projects have made the shortlist and commended list, ranging from biodiversity and ecology …
Fish survival in the extreme cold
30 June, 2023
An international team of researchers has sequenced the genomes of 24 Antarctic fish species to investigate how they survive the extreme cold. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, …
Bird diet sampling helps uncover the lives of living fossils
27 June, 2023
Researchers have discovered a flesh-eating fish is in major decline – by looking at the stomach content of some of the world’s largest bird, albatrosses. The Patagonian Lamprey, Geotria macrostoma, …
New emperor penguin colony discovered
20 January, 2023
Scientists have discovered a new emperor penguin colony in Antarctica using satellite mapping technology. This new colony makes a total of 62 known emperor penguin colonies around the coastline of …
Vulnerable seabirds tracking reveals foraging patterns
19 January, 2023
A project studying the at-sea distributions of white-chinned petrels from South Georgia is now running for a second season – and early data suggest there are important differences in foraging …
Mysterious lives of sharks and rays revealed
22 August, 2022
Scientists have unlocked the mysteries of how shark and ray species move up and down the ocean water column, in efforts to better understand them and protect their future. …
An eye in the sky: monitoring animal colonies using drones in the subantarctic
7 June, 2021
Scientists have conducted the first population study of penguins, seals and albatross using Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones on the subantarctic South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands to …
Krill provide a highway for ocean carbon storage
27 November, 2020
Large krill swarms in the Southern Ocean could help remove additional carbon from the atmosphere, in a way that is currently ‘hidden’ in global models. Scientists knew that the carbon-rich …
Scientists discover new penguin colonies from space
5 August, 2020
A new study using satellite mapping technology reveals there are nearly 20% more emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica than was previously thought. The results provide an important benchmark for monitoring …