The olive-coloured fish has broad head and a narrow body. Whilst scientists know that it has 'antifreeze' in its blood and maintains a very low heart rate of less than 10 beats per minute, almost nothing is known about its behaviour or how it evolved to live in Antarctica's extreme environment.
Discovering how the species may cope with predicted environmental change could help stock management or conservation of biodiversity within the Southern Ocean. In addition, it is possible that this research could lead to advances in medicine, especially relating to the problems experienced by human hearts when made to beat slowly (e.g. during surgery involving heart-lung bypass) or fail to beat fast enough (e.g. as a result of hypothermia in water or exposure on a mountain).
At the BAS Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula small acoustic tags (called 'pingers' due to the sound they make) are painlessly attached to the fish and the signals picked up by underwater microphones to monitor position, while data loggers measure heart rate. In the laboratory, Dr Hamish Campbell, monitors heart performance of the fish in a similar manner to that used with patients in a chest pain clinic. The unique combination of tracking and recording technology shows how the heart rate is controlled, and its response to changing demands due to feeding or a rise in temperature.
Physiologist Dr Stuart Egginton, from the University of Birmingham's Medical School is leading the study: He says,
"This pioneering work
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Contact: Linda Capper
L.Capper@bas.ac.uk
44-122-322-1448
British Antarctic Survey
30-Mar-2004