Desarrollo de la Antártica

EL DESARROLLO DE LA ANTÁRTlCl\. ' even sea earried pollutants, may be spread to Brazil, and Soutih Ame. rica in general, after Íts injeetion LO Antaretie troposphere from strat· ospherie layers. Besides, a future antan:tie exploitation (oil extrae. tion, for instanee), as has been suggested in several countries, may create new direct environmental probiems to Brazil and to the rest of South Ameriea and Afriea as wdl. On studying t.he Antaretic environmental faetors that conditioned the adaptation of living beings, we must emphasize the action of light. Sunlight is, probably, the most important factor on the Antarctic biorhythms. ,Activities as predation, sleep, migration, etc. are direetly dependent on light intensity, as has been demonstrated before (1). A conjugation of several sp'ecial factor:; as low temperature, light of s'hort wavelenght, abundance of ice, long periods of darkness and light, atmosphere dryness, provides eeological niches with very narrow con. dition for IHe development. On studying the algae phycobíllins we eouId find an example of Dhe algae adaptatíon to the antaretic envíronment. Antarctic red algae (Delisea pulchra and others) (8, il), synthesize phycobiUins wíth peaks of light absorption in shorter wavelenghts when compared to similar aIgae from tropical OT temperate latitudes, as shown in che table 1 and figure l. oo. 1.IiO 1,00 "'" Fig. 1 Fig. 1. AIgae analysis phycobillins of Pantoneura plocamioides Oplical density to plotted against absorplion wavelength.