Activity in the Arctic Ocean does not decrease during the long, dark winter and new research even found the environment to be thriving at that time.
According to BBC News, authors of a study published in the journal Current Biology gathered data in the Arctic Ocean over the course of three winters. The scientists examined the various species living in the water, as well as the ones birds were scooping out for meals.
"This once and for all changes the way we think of marine ecosystems during the polar night," study leaf author Jorgen Berge of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the University Centre in Svalbard, said in a press release. "The dark polar night is not a period without any biological activity [as had been assumed]. Concealed behind the curtain of darkness is a world of activity, beauty, and ecosystem importance."
Berge and his team examined the marine wildlife in Kongsfjorden, an inlet on the western coast of Spitsbergen, of the Svalbard archipelago. They found birds hunting in the dark, rather than fly south to a warmer, lighter area.
"They are not individuals that are left behind and about to die," Berge told BBC News. "They are doing well, they find their food in the dark. Many of them had very full stomachs.
"We actually saw increased biodiversity in the shallow water, connected to kelp beds.
"Not only are they there, but they are able to find their preferred food in the total darkness," Berge said in the release. "We do not know how they are able to do this, and we do not know how common it is for seabirds to overwinter at these latitudes. But we [now] know that they do."
