A new study revealed that icebergs in Antarctica are serving as “hotspots” for ocean life, with thriving communities of seabirds above and a web of phytoplankton, krill, and fish below.

The research conducted by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of San Diego and the University of South Carolina discovered that the icebergs hold trapped terrestrial material.

The material is released in the sea as they melt and the process produces a “halo effect” with significantly increased phytoplankton, krill and seabirds out to a radius of more than two miles around the icebergs. The icebergs may also play a role in global climate 

change.

“One important consequence of the increased biological productivity is that free-floating icebergs can serve as a route for carbon dioxide drawdown and sequestration of particulate carbon as it sinks into the deep sea,” said oceanographer Ken Smith of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), first author and principal investigator for the research.

Based on their new understanding of the impacts of the icebergs and their growing numbers the scientists estimate that overall the icebergs are raising the biological productivity of nearly 40 percent of the Weddell Sea’s area.