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Surveillance monitoring is important for detecting variations in species populations in response to natural and anthropogenic environmental changes. For seabirds this typically involves species-specific monitoring at breeding colonies.
Incidental mortality in fisheries is a major driver of population declines for albatrosses and petrels globally. However, accurate identification of species can be difficult due to the poor condition of bycaught birds and/or visual similarities between closely related species.
Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba Dana) is a key species of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, immensely abundant and targeted by the krill fishery. For their sustainable management, krill distribution and biomass estimates are required, typically achieved through acoustic-trawl surveys.
Signatories to the Antarctic Treaty System's Environmental Protocol are committed to preventing incursions of non-native species into Antarctica, but systematic surveillance is rare. Environmental DNA (eDNA)…
The rate and extent of global biodiversity change is surpassing our ability to measure, monitor and forecast trends. We propose an interconnected worldwide system of observation networks — a global biodiversity observing system (GBiOS)…
The Antarctic marine environment, although rich in life, is predicted to experience rapid and significant effects from climate change. Despite a revolution in the approaches used to document biodiversity…
Bryophytes are the group of land plants with the lowest photosynthetic rates, which was considered to be a consequence of their higher anatomical CO2 diffusional limitation compared with tracheophytes. However…
Antarctic biodiversity faces an unknown future with a changing climate. Most terrestrial biota is restricted to limited patches of ice-free land in a sea of ice, where they are adapted to the continent's extreme cold and wind and exploit microhabitats of suitable conditions.
The Antarctic climate-diversity-invasion hypothesis (ACDI) predicts that in Antarctic soil systems, climate change should lead to increases in the abundance and diversity of indigenous assemblages. Where biological invasions have occurred, however…
The Antarctic environment is extremely cold, windy and dry. Ozone depletion has resulted in increasing ultraviolet-B radiation, and increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing stratospheric ozone have altered Antarctica's climate.
Antarctic moss beds are sensitive to climatic conditions, and both their survival and community composition are particularly influenced by the availability of liquid water over summer. As Antarctic regions increasingly face climate pressures (e.g., changing hydrology and heat waves)…
Antarctic ice-free coastal environments, like the Vestfold Hills (East Antarctica), are shaped by a complex interplay of physical processes. This study synthesizes new data and existing research from the Vestfold Hills across marine, terrestrial and cryosphere science, meteorology, geomorphology…
Understanding how air-breathing diving animals moderate their dive behaviour when foraging successfully is foundational in the study of their foraging ecology. Yet, this fundamental relationship remains unresolved with previous research pointing to inconsistent relationships…
We investigated Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) and leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx) vocalizations using passive acoustic monitoring beneath landfast ice and open water, 5.6?km seaward from Davis Station, East Antarctica. Eight-minute recordings were manually sampled at 1?h intervals over 24?
With more than 90% of global warming occurring in the ocean, sea level rise doubling in the past 30 years, and the ever-increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, ocean observations are essential for understanding and addressing some of these most pressing global challenges.
As a species highly reliant on stable fast ice as a breeding platform, emperor penguins are increasingly challenged in their breeding attempts due to changes in fast ice conditions. We collated habitat information of 27 emperor penguin colonies in East Antarctica (43°-167°E)…
The weaning mass of southern elephant seal pups (Mirounga leonina) is a key predictor of their first-year survival probability. However, variations in pup morphometric characteristics (length, mass and body condition i.e. the residual of the allometric relationship between log(mass) and log(length))…
Background and Aims … Coping with both UV-B radiation and desiccation was essential for early land plants. In bryophytes, UV-B screening and desiccation tolerance partially depend on the physicochemical features of cell walls, which may also constrain photosynthesis.
Aim … Polar and alpine plants live at the edge of their physiological limits. Thus, relatively small changes in climate can have disproportionate effects on biological and ecological processes. Antarctic mosses display highly variable micro-topography (canopy architecture)…
Long-term observations are essential for ecological research, providing insights into species and ecosystem variability, processes, and responses to change. In a time of rapid global change, ecosystem modification, and emerging threats, such long-term monitoring (LTM) is increasingly important.
The Southern Ocean Time Series (SOTS) provides highly temporally resolved observations of the physical, chemical, and biological variability in the upper ocean, as well as the export of particulate organic and inorganic carbon to the ocean interior, in the subantarctic region south of Australia.