Uploaded August 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A primitive insect-like creature that has survived 30 ice ages was recently rediscovered in Antarctica by a team of scientists who had been searching for it for decades. "This is what we affectionately refer to as the ghost collembola," says BYU biology professor Byron Adams, who conducts regular research in Antarctica. "And we call it the ghost collembola because it's white, like a ghost, but because we had not found it after looking for it for years and years and years, we started to wonder if it was even real, if it really existed." In a paper published August 24, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Adams and colleagues from eight different research institutions produce genetic data from the microscopic critters that corroborate climate reconstructions and estimates of past warm periods of reduced ice and absent ice shelf in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.
Video produced by BYU University Communications
“Genetic diversity of soil invertebrates corroborates timing estimates for past collapses of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet” was published in the Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) August 24, 2020.
This research project was supported by the National Science Foundation (OPP projects 1341736 and 1637708).
Additional images provided by Gemma Collins and Barry O'Brien (University of Waikato) and by Byron Adams (BYU). Collembola illustrations courtesy of Igor Siwanowicz.
News release from BYU News:
What tiny microscopic creatures can tell us about climate change
The world’s scientists have been trying to figure out how exactly ice sheets in Antarctica have changed and moved for decades. Knowing this is critical to understanding rises in sea level and the accompanying global impacts.
Many of those efforts have produced promising models of ice ages and warmer periods, but confirming their accuracy has been difficult to nail down.
Now researchers, led in part by BYU’s Antarctic researcher Byron Adams, are using the history of tiny little microscopic Antarctic animals to solidify exactly how ice sheet dynamics played out over time and how they impacted historical ecosystems.
“The evolutionary history of biological organisms can corroborate what we infer from glaciology and geology about climate change in the past,” said Adams, a professor of biology at BYU. “In so doing, we are better able to predict how life on earth might respond to these types of changes now.”
In a new paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Adams and colleagues from eight different research institutions produce genetic data from the microscopic critters that corroborate climate reconstructions and estimates of past warm periods of reduced ice and absent ice shelf in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.
The researchers have spent the past 20 years collecting samples of six different species of microarthropods across 91 Antarctic locations. These tiny animals, known as Collembola, live in the soil. They have very limited mobility and can only colonize areas that are ice-free. During ice ages, the ice sheets advance, expanding their coverage of habitable space, while during warming periods, the ice sheets contract and get smaller, leaving more open real estate where the soil animals can disperse.
By studying their current locations and patterns of genealogical and evolutionary divergence, Adams and his team are able to better understand how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has changed overtime. The researchers found four species of the creatures that each showed genetically distinct populations at locations likely isolated for millions of years. The two other species were less genetically diverse, although they were restricted in range.
Together, these patterns give an independent estimate of the timing and magnitude of Antarctic ice sheet advances and retreats.
“Biology can be a powerful tool for making inferences about earth history,” said Adams. “We were thrilled to see the evolutionary history of the organisms is consistent with current models and geological and glaciological estimates of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics.”
Fellow researchers on the project came from institutions including the University of Waikato, Polar Knowledge Canada, the British Antarctic Survey, the University of Pretoria, the Ohio State University, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Colorado State University.
Adams himself has traveled to the Ross Ice Shelf every year for the past 17 years to collect samples. His research on tiny creatures, from water bears to nematodes, has provided a number of insights into historical climate change.
“If we really want to understand how climate change will impact us in the future, it is important to understand how it impacted life in the past,” he said.
A primitive insect-like creature that has survived 30 ice ages was recently rediscovered in Antarctica by a team of scientists who had been searching for it for decades. "This is what we affectionately refer to as the ghost collembola," says BYU biology professor Byron Adams, who conducts regular research in Antarctica. "And we call it the ghost collembola because it's white, like a ghost, but because we had not found it after looking for it for years and years and years, we started to wonder if it was even real, if it really existed." In a paper published August 24, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Adams and colleagues from eight different research institutions produce genetic data from the microscopic critters that corroborate climate reconstructions and estimates of past warm periods of reduced ice and absent ice shelf in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.
Video produced by BYU University Communications
“Genetic diversity of soil invertebrates corroborates timing estimates for past collapses of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet” was published in the Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) August 24, 2020.
This research project was supported by the National Science Foundation (OPP projects 1341736 and 1637708).
Additional images provided by Gemma Collins and Barry O'Brien (University of Waikato) and by Byron Adams (BYU). Collembola illustrations courtesy of Igor Siwanowicz.
News release from BYU News:
What tiny microscopic creatures can tell us about climate change
The world’s scientists have been trying to figure out how exactly ice sheets in Antarctica have changed and moved for decades. Knowing this is critical to understanding rises in sea level and the accompanying global impacts.
Many of those efforts have produced promising models of ice ages and warmer periods, but confirming their accuracy has been difficult to nail down.
Now researchers, led in part by BYU’s Antarctic researcher Byron Adams, are using the history of tiny little microscopic Antarctic animals to solidify exactly how ice sheet dynamics played out over time and how they impacted historical ecosystems.
“The evolutionary history of biological organisms can corroborate what we infer from glaciology and geology about climate change in the past,” said Adams, a professor of biology at BYU. “In so doing, we are better able to predict how life on earth might respond to these types of changes now.”
In a new paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Adams and colleagues from eight different research institutions produce genetic data from the microscopic critters that corroborate climate reconstructions and estimates of past warm periods of reduced ice and absent ice shelf in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.
The researchers have spent the past 20 years collecting samples of six different species of microarthropods across 91 Antarctic locations. These tiny animals, known as Collembola, live in the soil. They have very limited mobility and can only colonize areas that are ice-free. During ice ages, the ice sheets advance, expanding their coverage of habitable space, while during warming periods, the ice sheets contract and get smaller, leaving more open real estate where the soil animals can disperse.
By studying their current locations and patterns of genealogical and evolutionary divergence, Adams and his team are able to better understand how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has changed overtime. The researchers found four species of the creatures that each showed genetically distinct populations at locations likely isolated for millions of years. The two other species were less genetically diverse, although they were restricted in range.
Together, these patterns give an independent estimate of the timing and magnitude of Antarctic ice sheet advances and retreats.
“Biology can be a powerful tool for making inferences about earth history,” said Adams. “We were thrilled to see the evolutionary history of the organisms is consistent with current models and geological and glaciological estimates of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics.”
Fellow researchers on the project came from institutions including the University of Waikato, Polar Knowledge Canada, the British Antarctic Survey, the University of Pretoria, the Ohio State University, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Colorado State University.
Adams himself has traveled to the Ross Ice Shelf every year for the past 17 years to collect samples. His research on tiny creatures, from water bears to nematodes, has provided a number of insights into historical climate change.
“If we really want to understand how climate change will impact us in the future, it is important to understand how it impacted life in the past,” he said.
