Emerging biological archives can reveal ecological and climatic change in Antarctica

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change is causing observable changes in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean including increased air and ocean temperatures, glacial melt leading to sea-level rise and a reduction in salinity, and changes to freshwater water availability on land. These changes impact local Antarctic ecosystems and the Earth's climate system. The Antarctic has experienced significant past environmental change, including cycles of glaciation over the Quaternary Period (the past ~2.6 million years). Understanding Antarctica's paleoecosystems, and the corresponding paleoenvironments and climates that have shaped them, provides insight into present day ecosystem change, and importantly, helps constrain model projections of future change.Biological archives such as extant moss beds and peat profiles, biological proxies in lake and marine sediments, vertebrate animal colonies, and extant terrestrial and benthic marine invertebrates, complement other Antarctic paleoclimate archives by recording the nature and rate of past ecological change, the paleoenvironmental drivers of that change, and constrain current ecosystem and climate models. These archives provide invaluable information about terrestrial ice-free areas, a key location for Antarctic biodiversity, and the continental margin which is important for understanding ice sheet dynamics. Recent significant advances in analytical techniques (e.g., genomics, biogeochemical analyses) have led to new applications and greater

Southern Ocean food-webs and climate change: A short review and future directions

“…Novel interactions and the disappearance of some species can ultimately lead to a decrease in abundance and changes in the distribution of some species [186,190,218]. The cumulative impacts of climate change on organisms and changes in the structure of communities will ultimately increase the vulnerability of Southern Ocean biodiversity [186,218,221,222]. Therefore, we may expect that Southern Ocean food-webs will differ in the future from what we know now.…”

Climate change and extreme events are changing the biology of Polar Regions

“…Understanding the impact of these climatic events on biodiversity is more important than ever, but will require automated monitoring systems (e.g. Lembrechts et al, 2022), long‐term studies, climatic data at appropriate spatial and temporal resolution (Maclean, 2020), the use of genetic and other biological proxies (Strugnell et al, 2022; Bramley‐Alves et al, 2015; Lau & Strugnell, 2022; Royles & Griffiths, 2015) as well as a broader understanding of organisms and ecosystem processes outside of the growing season (Bokhorst et al, 2022).…”

Mapping water content in drying Antarctic moss communities using UAS‐borne SWIR imaging spectroscopy

“…The amount of water is also important as some moss species can tolerate submergence (e.g., the Antarctic endemic, Schistidium antarctici), whilst other species suffer when saturated for extended periods (Melick et al, 1994;Robinson et al, 2018;Wasley et al, 2006Wasley et al, , 2012. Their known role as environmental change sentinels makes it important to understand how these plants are responding to the impacts of climate change (Bergstrom et al, 2021;Prather et al, 2019;Strugnell et al, 2022). The health and diversity of well-developed Antarctic moss communities in response to changes in climatic conditions have been assessed in several studies (Amesbury et al, 2017;Casanovas et al, 2015;Clarke et al, 2012;Dunn & Robinson, 2006;Perera-Castro et al, 2020;Prather et al, 2019;Shortlidge et al, 2016;Turnbull & Robinson, 2009).…”