4 5 4 plants and animals in antarctica

A main idea of one section of this book is that some plants and animals have adapted to the harsh weather of Antarctica.. Why do you think this book starts and ends with scientists stu

Life Science

Antarctica

by Christine Wolf

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

ISBN 0-328-13481-3

ì<(sk$m)=bdeibg< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Scott Foresman Reading Street 4.5.4

Genre Comprehension

Skills and Strategy Text Features

Expository

nonfi ction

• Main Idea and Details

• Graphic Sources

• Text Structure

• Captions

• Map

• Heads

• Diagram

Life Science

Antarctica

by Christine Wolf

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

ISBN 0-328-13481-3

ì<(sk$m)=bdeibg< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Scott Foresman Reading Street 4.5.4

Genre Comprehension

Skills and Strategy Text Features

Expository

nonfi ction

• Main Idea and Details

• Graphic Sources

• Text Structure

• Captions

• Map

• Heads

• Diagram

Main Idea

Supporting Details

Reader Response

1 A main idea of one section of this book is that

some plants and animals have adapted to the harsh weather of Antarctica Reread that section

to find details that support this main idea Put your ideas into a graphic organizer like the one below.

2 How does the diagram on page 16 help you

understand the important idea the author wants

to get across in this book?

3 On page 5, the author speaks of weather being

forbidding How does the context of this word

help you know what the word means? What can you tell from its structure?

4 Why do you think this book starts and ends with

scientists studying krill in Antarctica?

Antarctica

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois

Coppell, Texas • Ontario, California • Mesa, Arizona

by Christine Wolf

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for

photographic material The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to

correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman,

a division of Pearson Education.

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R),

Background (Bkgd)

Cover (Bkgd) ©Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis, (C) ©Kevin Schafer/Corbis; 1 ©Brandon D

Cole/Corbis; 3 (BC) ©Maria Stenzel/National Geographic/Getty Images, (BR) ©Peter

Johnson/Corbis; 4 ©Royalty-Free/Corbis; 6 (TL) ©Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis, 6 (TR)

©Chris Rainier/Corbis, (Bkgd) ©Rick Price/Corbis, (BC) ©Martin B Withers; Frank Lane

Picture Agency/Corbis; 7 ©Lester V Bergman/Corbis; 8 ©Brandon D Cole/Corbis; 9 (TL)

©Royalty-Free/Corbis, (BR) ©Stuart Westmorland/Corbis; 10 ©Kevin Schafer/Corbis; 11

©W Perry Conway/Corbis; 12 ©Peter Johnson/Corbis; 13 ©Galen Rowell/Corbis; 15 (TL)

©Lester V Bergman/Corbis, (TR) ©Kevin Schafer/Corbis, (C) ©Peter Johnson/Corbis,

(BL) ©W Perry Conway/Corbis, (BR) ©Stuart Westmorland/Corbis; 17 ©Roger Tidman/

Corbis; 18 ©Peter Johnson/Corbis; 19 ©Randy Faris/Corbis

ISBN: 0-328-13481-3

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc

All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America This publication is

protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher

prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission

in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

likewise For information regarding permission(s), write to: Permissions Department,

Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, Illinois 60025.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

The Palmer Sea Lab ship studies animals in Antarctica.

krill

3

Where is Antarctica?

This ship, called the Palmer, is 308 feet long

When loaded, it weighs more than 7,000 tons

It is set to depart for Antarctica This tiny fish,

called krill, is the size of your thumb

Why are they important to each other? The twenty-two crew members and thirty-seven scientists on the Palmer are gathered in anticipation

of studying the krill population in Antarctica

Where is Antarctica? Why are krill so important to study? This book will answer these questions and many more, as you learn about the plants and animals in one of the loneliest places

on Earth

What is Antarctica Like?

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and most

remote place on Earth Antarctica is a continent

surrounded by oceans: the Pacific Ocean, the

Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean

Temperatures at the center of the continent

hover between -66˚F and -76˚F The lowest

temperature on Earth, -128.6˚F, was recorded in

Antarctica

The land is completely covered in ice Yet

Antarctica is considered a desert Why? A desert

is dry land —a place that gets less than ten inches

of precipitation each year Because Antarctica

receives less than three inches of precipitation

each year, it fits the description In other words,

Antarctica is the coldest desert on Earth

4

I N D I A N

O C E A N

P A C I F I C

O C E A N

Antarctica has two seasons: A very long, dark winter and a very short, bright summer In winter, you may see days with just one hour of sunlight

Blizzards happen in Antarctica when raging winds blow snow along the surface Surface winds can sweep up loose snow at more than 100 miles an hour These winds cause severe blizzard conditions that may last a week or longer

You wouldn’t want to live in Antarctica But then again, you probably couldn’t live there It’s

simply too cold and forbidding.

Antarctica’s plant life

What Plants and Animals Live There?

In the freezing temperatures and strong winds

of Antarctica, only a few flowering plants can

survive

Other kinds of plants, such as moss and algae,

grow in these freezing conditions But these plants

usually grow while covered by snow and ice!

These plants are hardy—able to stand harsh

conditions Antarctica’s creatures, like krill, need

tiny plants like these to survive

6

Phytoplankton

7

Antarctica’s food web relies on these tiny plants, called phytoplankton These plants are the primary producers of food in Antarctica

The light and food that phytoplankton need

to grow and reproduce depend on the weather and climate Colder winters produce larger phytoplankton Warmer winters produce smaller phytoplankton, which means less food for krill

Later you will see how that affects Antarctica’s other animals

The amazing baleen whale

Animals in Antarctica are interesting for all

their differences Each Antarctic animal has

special body features that help it survive

Animals in Antarctica include whales,

penguins, seals, flying birds, fish, squid, and krill

Let’s take a closer look at the unique features

of some of Antarctica’s creatures These features

help these animals adapt to the cold

8

Baleen plates act like kitchen strainers, trapping krill inside the whales’ mouths.

9

How Have Plants and Animals Adapted to Harsh Weather?

Meet the Whales

Whales are enormous creatures Many kinds

of whales migrate to Antarctica’s waters Some

of these are called baleen whales Baleen whales fatten up on krill They have a kind of strainer in their mouths, called a baleen plate, that catches the tiny fish

The humpback whale can eat more than one ton of krill a day An adult blue whale eats four

or more tons of krill each day

Penguins in Antarctica

10

Birds That Can’t Fly: Penguins!

Did you know that penguins cannot fly? At

one time, they probably could Today, the only

“flying” they do is through the icy water

Penguins have a waterproof coat of

overlapping feathers This keeps a warm layer of

air close to their bodies A fatty layer under their

skin also helps keep penguins warm enough to

survive in freezing air and water

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 10

Seals are right at home in Antarctica!

11

Fast-Swimming Seals

Because of their torpedo-shaped bodies, seals travel swiftly through the water Their fur and their thick layer of fat, called blubber, help keep

them warm Seals enjoy lying on icebergs, or

huge chunks of floating ice When they aren’t playing in the icy Antarctic water, they pull their

bodies onto icebergs to rest Then they heave

themselves back into the sea to play some more!

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 11

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 12

Antarctica’s fish and krill

13

Antarctica’s Krill

There are very few fish in the world that can live in the icy waters of Antarctica Fish here have an interesting feature: they have antifreeze proteins in their bodies that keep them from freezing! Most fish here are small Antarctica’s cod

is the largest fish—it can weigh up to 200 pounds!

Krill, a tiny, shrimplike species of fish, are one of the most important living creatures in Antarctica

Krill are eaten by almost every animal here

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 13

How Do Plants and Animals

Depend on One Another?

An ecosystem is an environment and all the living things in it How those

living things interact with other living

things is important to the ecosystem

Antarctica is an example of an extreme

ecosystem

Everything, living and nonliving, works together in this ecosystem

Each part depends on another part

for survival This dependence on one

another is called interdependence

Antarctica’s ecosystem depends

on the krill population Nearly every

animal in Antarctica—fish, penguins,

whales, and so on—eat krill If anything

happened to the krill population, many

animals would die

14

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 14

All living things depend

on one another.

15

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 15

ANTARCTICA’S FOOD CHAIN

TOOTHED WHALES

WHALES

SMALL PLANTS THAT FLOAT ON

A EATS B

A B

KRILL

16

This is a diagram of a food chain Just as links

of a chain are connected, so are living things

Every animal needs to eat to get energy

Everything that an animal eats also needs to eat

Choose an animal on the diagram of Antarctica’s

food chain To find out what it eats, trace where

the arrows on the food chain lead The food

chain shows how energy moves from one living

thing to another—then to another

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 16

Krill

At the convergence—or center point—of this

food chain is krill That’s how important krill are!

Most of Antarctica’s animals depend on krill for their food Some animals eat other things besides krill

Imagine what would happen if humans caught too many fish in Antarctica Which animals would

go hungry? What if disease wiped out the krill population? What would happen then?

17

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 17

Global warming melts precious sea ice.

Scientists in Antarctica today are very worried

about the krill population It seems to be getting

smaller They think it might be because the Earth

seems to be getting warmer We call this global

warming

Global warming slowly melts the sea ice As

this happens, the phytoplankton and algae that

live in the sea ice die off Without algae and

phytoplankton, krill have nothing to eat So as

the Earth warms up, the krill die

If krill keep dying, the animals that depend on

krill for food might die, too Scientists are trying

to find ways to keep the krill population strong

18

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 18

Antarctica’s Landscape

19

Antarctica: A Forbidding Environment

Antarctica’s climate makes it a forbidding place to live Only the strongest and most well-adapted plants and animals can survive in such a severe ecosystem

That’s why scientists are doing all they can to study this incredible area They want Antarctica

to survive!

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 19

Glossary

looking forward to;

expectation.

seven great land masses

on Earth.

meeting at a point.

unpleasant; threatening

or menacing.

with great effort or force.

chunks of floating ice.

13481_001-020_FSD.indd 20

Main Idea

Supporting Details

Reader Response

1 A main idea of one section of this book is that

some plants and animals have adapted to the harsh weather of Antarctica Reread that section

to find details that support this main idea Put your ideas into a graphic organizer like the one below.

2 How does the diagram on page 16 help you

understand the important idea the author wants

to get across in this book?

3 On page 5, the author speaks of weather being

forbidding How does the context of this word

help you know what the word means? What can you tell from its structure?

4 Why do you think this book starts and ends with

scientists studying krill in Antarctica?