A team of Australian marine scientists will set off on a mission to investigate how much the food source for whales and penguins in the Southern Ocean will decline as water temperatures rise.
Chief investigator Andrew Constable will lead an international fleet that departs Hobart on Monday to study krill populations in the Kerguelen Axis, southwest of Australia.
As global temperatures rise, Dr Constable expects the cool-water critter's habitat to contract towards the Antarctic, meaning less food for wildlife such as seals, whales and penguins.
"This research is vital to Australia because we depend on this area for conservation and fisheries," he told reporters at the Macquarie Wharf in Hobart on Sunday.
First, the Aurora Australis team will set out with 44 scientists to map the habitat by sampling fish, krill and water depths for a biological and chemical snapshot of the area.
They will be joined by marine scientists from China and the UK, as well as ships from France and Japan.
The data will be used to understand how krill species may be affected by climate change and ocean acidification, leading to recommendations on catch limits for krill fisheries.
The last time the area was studied in detail was in the early 1900s.
