Review of Health of Antarctic wildlife: a challenge for science and policy, edited by Kerry R. Knowles & Martin J. Riddle

Abstract

Climate change and disease, among other factors, play an important role in the regulation and evolution of animal populations through the differential survival of individuals (Holmes 1996; Harvell et al. 2002). The study and monitoring of disease is important because diseases are likely to be spread more rapidly now than in the recent past because of increased globalization and rapid humaninduced climate change (Daszak et al. 2000; Ward & Lafferty 2004). Antarctic wildlife offers a unique opportunity to study disease spread in terms of globalization and climate change because: (1) Antarctic animals are increasingly exposed to humans and other disease vectors, such as introduced species; and (2) there is strong evidence of climatic changes in and around Antarctica (Mayewski et al. 2009), which together may affect the composition and virulence of pathogens or increase the overlap between Antarctic and other seabirds and their parasites (e.g., Kovats et al. 2001).