By Antarctic marine worms survive with a little help from their bacterial friends.
Close relatives of earthworms, polychaetes are some of the most common animals on the ocean floor, but how these species survive the low temperatures of Antarctic waters has been a mystery. Other Antarctic species, like icefish, make their own antifreeze proteins, “but most Antarctic organisms do not produce these proteins,” says Cinzia Corinaldesi, a marine ecologist at Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy. (SN: 1/13/22).
