In Antarctica, where penguin pods, life flourishes

Penguins like the company – some colonies of the flightless bird have more than a million people. And with squads that can go that far, you can be sure that they ruin everything, if you know what I mean. (Hint: I'm talking about poo.) But the waste of penguins is not only messy, it can also be useful. Researchers have used it to locate colonies in the past. Now, it seems that poo could be good for something else too.

In a study at Current biologyResearchers from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) in the Netherlands and the UK Natural Environment Research Council have found that penguin poop can help strengthen local biodiversity.

The role of Poo

The team, led by VUA ecologist Stef Bokhorst, focused on the penguin and seal colonies of the Antarctic Peninsula, known for their cold, harsh and largely barren environment. Specifically, they examined a geographical area from the South Orkney Islands to Marguerite Bay. The researchers installed air sensors for a week at various sites in this range to detect ammonia, a compound composed of nitrogen (a nutrient essential for plants) and hydrogen, present in the poop of penguin and seal. In addition, they collected lichen and moss specimens near colonies and in areas where no penguin or seal activity was observed as controls. After analyzing the samples, Bokhorst and his team acquired some essential information.

"What we see is that the poo produced by seals and penguins evaporates in part in the form of ammonia," Bokhorst says in a press release. "Then ammonia is captured by the wind and transported inland, which enters the soil and provides the nitrogen that primary producers need to survive in this landscape."

The floor covered with ammonia is quite impressive. Larger colonies found nutrients within a radius of more than 2.5 square miles of their location. This increase in ammonia – and the subsequent increase in nitrogen – promoted the growth of moss and lichen. In turn, there were two to eight times more small invertebrates living in these so-called primary producers than in areas that were not in these ammonia footprints.

Using these moss and lichen samples as an approximation, the group believes that these hotspots of biodiversity likely occur throughout Antarctica. The discovery highlights the important role that poo plays in maintaining other life forms on the icy continent.