As temperatures rise across Antarctica, snow algae habitats are also expanding along the coasts.
Green snow absorbs 40 percent more energy from sunlight than pure white snow, increasing the rate of melting, and penguins help speed up the process.
“Penguin guano acts as a fertilizer... nourishing these dense blooms of green snow algae,” Alia Khan, a cryosphere biogeochemist and lead author of the study, notes in a commentary.
As penguins move closer to the South Pole because of changing living conditions, there is a risk that they will fertilize additional areas and expand the algae’s habitat - something scientists have not taken into account in their forecasts so far.
