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Fast Contiguous Somatic Hypermutations for Single-Objective Optimisation and Multi-Objective Optimisation Via Decomposition

11 April, 2025 by Donya Yazdani

Somatic Contiguous Hypermutations (CHM) are a popular variation operator used in artificial immune systems for optimisation tasks. Theoretical studies have shown that CHM operators can lead to considerable speed-ups in…

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Proximate measurements of a giant iceberg reveal the effects of meltwater on upper ocean properties [Research briefing]

7 April, 2025 by Alexander Brearley, Kate Hendry, Natasha Lucas

Measurements from a robotic underwater vehicle reveal the impacts of meltwater from the giant iceberg A-68A on the properties of the surrounding Southern Ocean. In addition to increasing surface stratification…

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Feasibility of using very high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor Tristan albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena on Gough Island

4 April, 2025 by Ellen Bowler, Marie Attard, Peter Fretwell, Richard Phillips

The Tristan albatross Diomedea dabbenena is a Critically Endangered species that breeds exclusively on remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Although the population continues to decline, regular on-the-ground monitoring…

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Twenty‐thousand‐year gap between deglaciation and peat formation on sub‐Antarctic Marion Island attributed to climate and sea level change

1 April, 2025 by Alexander Whittle, Dominic Hodgson

Radiocarbon dating of basal peats has been a key factor in determining minimum ages for deglaciation on sub-Antarctic islands. On Marion Island, peat bogs dominate the landscape below 300 m a.s.l.,…

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Annual trends in mercury contamination are associated with changing trophic niches of giant petrels

1 April, 2025 by Danielle Buss, Jaume Forcada, Richard Phillips, William Mills

Annual variation in prey availability can influence seabird diets and hence their exposure to pollutants, including mercury (Hg). Among seabirds, those species that scavenge carrion of marine mammals and other…

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The role of substrate characteristics and temperature for potential non-native plant establishment in Maritime Antarctic ecosystems

1 April, 2025 by Peter Convey

Polar ecosystems are threatened by non-native plants, and this risk will increase with climate warming. Non-native plant growth depends on Antarctic environmental conditions and substrates, but these influences are poorly…

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Desmonostoc cockrellii sp. nov. (Nostocales, Cyanobacteria): a new record of a subaerophytic species from The Habitat Penang Hill, Malaysia

1 April, 2025 by Peter Convey

Subaerophytic cyanobacterial diversity is poorly known in Malaysian rainforests generally and at Penang Hill specifically. A new subaerophytic species of cyanobacteria, Desmonostoc cockrellii sp. nov., was isolated from rocky surfaces…

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Developing a Southern Ocean Marine Ecosystem Model Ensemble to Assess Climate Risks and Uncertainties

20 March, 2025 by Eugene Murphy, Patrick Keith, Simeon Hill

Climate change could irreversibly modify Southern Ocean ecosystems. Marine ecosystem model (MEM) ensembles can assist policy making by projecting future changes and allowing the evaluation and assessment of alternative management…

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What can lithics tell us about hominin technology’s ‘primordial soup’? An origin of stone knapping via the emulation of Mother Nature

15 March, 2025 by Teal Riley

The use of stone hammers to produce sharp stone flakes—knapping—is thought to represent a significant stage in hominin technological evolution because it facilitated the exploitation of novel resources, including meat…

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Use of excess meltwater from continuous flow analysis systems for the analysis of low concentration insoluble microparticles in ice cores

13 March, 2025 by Claire Allen, Dieter Tetzner, Jack Humby, Liz Thomas

Low-concentration insoluble microparticles that are preserved in ice cores offer valuable information for reconstructing past environmental changes. However, their low concentrations and limited sample availability present challenges for extraction and…

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Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica

10 March, 2025 by Alice Fremand, Andy Smith, David Vaughan, Ed King, Elena Field, Fausto Ferraccioli, Hugh Corr, Hamish Pritchard, James Kirkham, Peter Fretwell, Richard Hindmarsh, Tom Jordan, Richard Hindmarsh

We present Bedmap3, the latest suite of gridded products describing surface elevation, ice-thickness and the seafloor and subglacial bed elevation of the Antarctic south of 60 °S. Bedmap3 incorporates and…

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Carbon dioxide fluxes associated with prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities in ice-free areas on King George Island, Maritime Antarctica

10 March, 2025 by Peter Convey

Background and Methods: We assessed the prokaryotic and eukaryotic diversity present in non-vegetated and vegetated soils on King George Island, Maritime Antarctic, in combination with measurements of carbon dioxide fluxes.…

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Evaluating the resilience of Antarctic echinoderms to Southern Ocean freshening: short- and long-term responses.

5 March, 2025 by Nicholas Barrett

Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, presenting a significant threat to biodiversity. In the Southern Ocean, organisms are facing increasing challenges due to warming, ocean acidification, reduced sea-ice cover,…

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Inferring Species Interactions From Co-occurrence Networks With Environmental DNA Metabarcoding Data in a Coastal Marine Food Web

4 March, 2025 by Elizabeth Boyse

A good understanding of biotic interactions is necessary to accurately predict the vulnerability of ecosystems to climate change. Recently, co-occurrence networks built from environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding data have arisen…

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Energetic Electron Precipitation From the Radiation Belts: Geomagnetic and Solar Wind Proxies for Precipitation Flux Magnitudes

3 March, 2025 by Aaron Hendry, Mark Clilverd

Previously the geomagnetic Ap index has been used as a proxy to produce empirical energetic electron precipitation (EEP) forcing representations suitable for incorporation into coupled-climate model runs. The long-running Ap…

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Impact of Sudden Stratospheric Warming and Elevated Stratopause Events on the Very Low Frequency Radio Signal

1 March, 2025 by Mark Clilverd

Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSW) and Elevated Stratopause (ES) events are mid-to-high latitudinal, atmospheric wave-driven phenomena leading to significant changes in wind, temperatures, and vertical mass transport, especially at stratospheric and…

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Simulation of Cloud Processes Over Offshore Coastal Antarctica Using the High-Resolution Regional UK Met Office Unified Model With Interactive Aerosols

28 February, 2025 by Andrew Orr, Ruth Price

The Southern Ocean and offshore coastal Antarctica are key regions for global climate. Low level mixed-phase clouds strongly control the surface radiation budget of this region but remain challenging for…

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Mid-Holocene sea-ice dynamics and climate in the northeastern Weddell Sea inferred from an Antarctic snow petrel stomach oil deposit [EGUsphere preprint]

25 February, 2025 by Dominic Hodgson

Understanding past variability in Antarctic sea ice is of critical importance to determine how it regulates global climate processes and biogeochemistry, and Southern Ocean marine ecosystems. Records of changes in…

Read more on Mid-Holocene sea-ice dynamics and climate in the northeastern Weddell Sea inferred from an Antarctic snow petrel stomach oil deposit [EGUsphere preprint]

Generating electron density archives using mainland EISCAT data between 2001-2021 at 10 minute and 1 hour integration

12 February, 2025 by Andrew Kavanagh, Jade Reidy, Jade Reidy

The mesosphere/lower-thermosphere/ionosphere (MLTI) region is a critical boundary in the coupling of the atmosphere, climate and space weather, however it is one of the least understood regions, making it hard…

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Uncovering the Potential of Utilising Terrestrial Biogenic Markers in Ice Cores as Proxies to Past Environmental Conditions

11 February, 2025

Ice cores provide an un-matched high-resolution archive into paleoclimate reconstruction that other environmental archives (e.g. coral, sediment cores, and tree rings) do not. Limited research has focussed on terrestrial organic…

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Extreme precipitation associated with atmospheric rivers over West Antarctic ice shelves: insights from kilometre-scale regional climate modelling

11 February, 2025 by Andrew Orr, Ella Gilbert

We explore how atmospheric rivers (ARs) in a summer and winter case interact with the topography of the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica, and deposit significant precipitation amounts. To do…

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Assessment of the southern polar and subpolar warming in the PMIP4 last interglacial simulations using paleoclimate data syntheses

7 February, 2025 by Louise Sime, Qinggang Gao, Rahul Sivankutty, Xu Zhang

Given relatively abundant paleo-proxies, the study of the last interglacial (LIG, ∼ 129–116 000 years ago, ka) is valuable to understanding the responses and feedback of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in…

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Development and application of a Py-GC/MS method for the quantification of microplastic contamination in terrestrial environments

5 February, 2025 by Rebecca Peel

This thesis details the development and application of a pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) method for the quantification of microplastic pollution in terrestrial samples. Initial analysis of plastic standards using Py-GC/MS…

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Direct observation of Arctic Sea salt aerosol production from blowing snow and modeling over a changing sea ice environment

4 February, 2025 by Ananth Ranjithkumar, Markus Frey, Thomas Lachlan-Cope, Xin Yang

In the polar regions, there is significant model bias in the number concentrations and seasonality of sea salt aerosol (SSA) due to the lack of understanding of aerosol sources associated…

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In vivo pathogenicity characterization of viable opportunistic fungi Aspergillus thermomutatus and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa recovered from maritime Antarctic permafrost

2 February, 2025 by Peter Convey

In this study, we evaluated the pathogenic potential of the fungi Aspergillus thermomutatus and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa obtained from maritime Antarctic permafrost using in vivo experiments on immunocompromised BALB/c mice. Despite…

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Drivers of interspecific spatial segregation in two closely-related seabird species at a Pan-Atlantic scale

1 February, 2025 by Anne-Sophie Bonnet-Lebrun, Norman Ratcliffe

Aim: Ecologically similar species living in sympatry are expected to segregate to reduce the effects of competition where re-sources are limiting. Segregation from heterospecifics commonly occurs in space, but it…

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Photophysiology of the first reported bleached crustose coralline alga, Clathromorphum sp. (Hapalidiales, Rhodophyta), from Antarctica

1 February, 2025 by Peter Convey

During a 2019 Chilean Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ECA 55) studying crustose coralline algae (CCA) diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula, bleaching of these algae was observed for the first time in…

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