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Semiautomated detection and mapping of vegetation distribution in the Antarctic environment using spatial-spectral characteristics of WorldView-2 imagery.

15 August, 2019 by Peter Convey, Peter Fretwell

Effective monitoring of changes in the geographic distribution of cryospheric vegetation requires high-resolution and accurate baseline maps. The rationale of the present study is to compare multiple feature extraction approaches…

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Solar Cell Degradation due to Proton Belt Enhancements During Electric Orbit Raising to GEO

8 August, 2019 by Alexander Lozinski, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert

The recent introduction of all‐electric propulsion on geosynchronous satellites enables lower‐cost access to space by replacing chemical propellant. However, the time period required to initially raise the satellite to geostationary…

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Salt-enrichment impact on biomass production in a natural population of peatland dwelling Arcellinida and Euglyphida (testate amoebae)

1 August, 2019 by Bianca Perren, Dominic Hodgson, Stephen Roberts

Unicellular free-living microbial eukaryotes of the order Arcellinida (Tubulinea; Amoebozoa) and Euglyphida (Cercozoa; SAR), commonly termed testate amoebae, colonise almost every freshwater ecosystem on Earth. Patterns in the distribution and…

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A comprehensive large-scale assessment of fisheries bycatch risk to threatened seabird populations

1 August, 2019 by Andrew Wood, Deborah Pardo, Richard Phillips, Thomas Clay, Thomas Clay

1.Incidental mortality (bycatch) in fisheries remains the greatest threat to many large marine vertebrates and is a major barrier to fisheries sustainability. Robust assessments of bycatch risk are crucial for…

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Altitudinal gradients in Magellanic sub-Antarctic lagoons: the effect of elevation on freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and distribution.

29 July, 2019 by Peter Convey

Background. The study of altitudinal gradients provides insights about species diversity, distribution patterns and related drivers. The Magellanic sub-Antarctic ecoregion has a steep elevational gradient, peaking at around 1,000 m…

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Heterozygosity at neutral and immune loci is not associated with neonatal mortality due to microbial infection in Antarctic fur seals

22 July, 2019 by Jaume Forcada

Numerous studies have reported correlations between the heterozygosity of genetic markers and fitness. These heterozygosity–fitness correlations (HFCs) play a central role in evolutionary and conservation biology, yet their mechanistic basis…

Read more on Heterozygosity at neutral and immune loci is not associated with neonatal mortality due to microbial infection in Antarctic fur seals

A new vent limpet in the genus Lepetodrilus (Gastropoda: Lepetodrilidae) from Southern Ocean hydrothermal vent fields showing high phenotypic plasticity

16 July, 2019 by Katrin Linse

The recently discovered hydrothermal vent ecosystems in the Southern Ocean host a suite of vent-endemic species, including lepetodrilid limpets dominating in abundance. Limpets were collected from the chimneys, basalts and…

Read more on A new vent limpet in the genus Lepetodrilus (Gastropoda: Lepetodrilidae) from Southern Ocean hydrothermal vent fields showing high phenotypic plasticity

Is reproductive strategy a key factor in understanding the evolutionary history of Southern Ocean Asteroidea (Echinodermata)?

16 July, 2019 by Chester Sands

Life traits such as reproductive strategy can be determining factors of species evolutionary history and explain the resulting diversity patterns. This can be investigated using phylogeographic analyses of genetic units.…

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Geochronology and geochemistry of the northern Scotia Sea: a revised interpretation of the North and West Scotia ridge junction

15 July, 2019 by Alexander Tate, Alex Burton-Johnson, Philip Leat, Teal Riley

Understanding the tectonic evolution of the Scotia Sea is critical to interpreting how ocean gateways developed during the Cenozoic and their influence on ocean circulation patterns and water exchange between…

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Morphological and geological features of Drake Passage, Antarctica, from a new digital bathymetric model

3 July, 2019 by Alexander Tate, Elanor Gowland, Philip Leat, Robert Larter, Teal Riley

The Drake Passage is an oceanic gateway of about 850 km width located between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula that connects the southeastern Pacific Ocean with the southwestern Atlantic Ocean.…

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Education and outreach by the Antarctic Treaty Parties, Observers and Experts under the framework of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings

1 July, 2019 by Linda Capper

The development of formal discourse about education and outreach within the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM), and the influence of major international activities in this field, are described. This study…

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Modelling Groundwater – Surface Water Interactions Under Climate Change Scenarios: insights from Axios Delta, Greece.

1 July, 2019 by Scott Hosking

Competing multi-sectorial water demands as well as demands for ecosystem services in coastal aquifers exert significant pressures to local water resources. Climate change is already altering spatiotemporal rainfall and runoff…

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A validation of ERA5 reanalysis data in the southern Antarctic Peninsula – Ellsworth Land region, and its implications for ice core studies

29 June, 2019 by Claire Allen, Dieter Tetzner, Liz Thomas

Climate reanalyses provide key information to calibrate proxy records in regions with scarce direct observations. The climate reanalysis used to perform a proxy calibration should accurately reproduce the local climate…

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Structure, variability, and mean-flow interactions of the January 2015 quasi-two-day wave at middle and high southern latitudes

27 June, 2019 by Andrew Kavanagh

The structure, variability, and mean-flow interactions of the quasi-2-day wave (Q2DW) in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere during January 2015 were studied employing meteor and medium-frequency radar winds at eight…

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Physiological diversity, biodiversity patterns and global climate change: testing key hypotheses involving temperature and oxygen

17 June, 2019 by Simon Morley

Documenting and explaining global patterns of biodiversity in time and space have fascinated and occupied biologists for centuries. Investigation of the importance of these patterns, and their underpinning mechanisms, has…

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Individual spatial consistency and dietary flexibility in the migratory behaviour of northern gannets wintering in the Northeast Atlantic.

12 June, 2019 by Richard Phillips

Migration is a fundamental behavioural process prevalent among a wide variety of animal taxa. As individuals are increasingly shown to present consistent responses to environmental cues for breeding or foraging,…

Read more on Individual spatial consistency and dietary flexibility in the migratory behaviour of northern gannets wintering in the Northeast Atlantic.

Sex-specific effects of fisheries and climate on the demography of sexually dimorphic seabirds

11 June, 2019 by Andrew Wood, Deborah Pardo, Jaume Forcada, Louise Ireland, Richard Phillips

1.Many animal taxa exhibit sex‐specific variation in ecological traits, such as foraging and distribution. These differences could result in sex‐specific responses to change, but such demographic effects are poorly understood.…

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Back to the Future: Using long-term observational and paleo-proxy reconstructions to improve model projections of Antarctic climate

7 June, 2019 by Liz Thomas, Louise Sime, Thomas Bracegirdle

Quantitative estimates of future Antarctic climate change are derived from numerical global climate models. Evaluation of the reliability of climate model projections involves many lines of evidence on past performance…

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Subglacial hydrological control on flow of an Antarctic Peninsula palaeo-ice stream

5 June, 2019 by Alexander Tate, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, James Kirkham, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter, Zoe Roseby

Basal hydrological systems play an important role in controlling the dynamic behaviour of ice streams. Data showing their morphology and relationship to geological substrates beneath modern ice streams are, however,…

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Arrhenian growth thermodynamics in marine-derived tropical Fusarium equiseti and polar Pseudogymnoascus spp. in a liquid culture system

1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey

We hypothesised that the activation energy (Ea) of growth in a marine-derived tropical strain of Fusarium equiseti and polar strains of Pseudogymnoascus spp. grown for 10 days in a liquid…

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A comparative study of phycobilliprotein production in two strains of Pseudanabaena isolated from Arctic and tropical regions in relation to different light wavelengths and photoperiods

1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey

Phycobiliproteins, which include phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin, are the group of coloured accessory photosynthetic pigments present in cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Pseudanabaena is a genus of microscopic cyanobacteria, cosmopolitan in distribution…

Read more on A comparative study of phycobilliprotein production in two strains of Pseudanabaena isolated from Arctic and tropical regions in relation to different light wavelengths and photoperiods