25 February, 2021 by Jaume Forcada
The Antarctic fur seal lives south of the Antarctic Polar Front and has never been reported breeding in Latin America. Individuals encountered occasionally, from Peru, norther Chile, and the Juan…Read more on Antarctic Fur Seal (Arctocephalus gazella, Peters 1875).
25 February, 2021 by Mark Clilverd
The lower-thermosphere–ionosphere (LTI) system consists of the upper atmosphere and the lower part of the ionosphere and as such comprises a complex system coupled to both the atmosphere below and…
23 February, 2021 by Adrian Jenkins, Christopher Bull, Irena Vankova, Paul Holland
Recent work on the Filchner‐Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS) system has shown that a redirection of the coastal current in the southeastern Weddell Sea could lead to a regime change in…Read more on Remote control of Filchner‐Ronne Ice Shelf melt rates by the Antarctic Slope Current
23 February, 2021 by Pierre Dutrieux
The Getz region of West Antarctica is losing ice at an increasing rate; however, the forcing mechanisms remain unclear. Here we use satellite observations and an ice sheet model to…23 February, 2021 by Richard Phillips
Climate change, fisheries and invasive species represent three pervasive threats to seabirds, globally. Understanding the relative influence and compounding nature of marine and terrestrial threats on the demography of seabird…23 February, 2021 by Hugh Venables, Michael Meredith
The relative flow of carbon through the viral shunt and the microbial loop is a pivotal factor controlling the contribution of secondary production to the food web and to rates…23 February, 2021 by Huw Griffiths
Research vessels equipped with fibre optic and copper-cored coaxial cables support the live onboard inspection of high-bandwidth marine data in real time. This allows for towed still-image and video sleds…
22 February, 2021 by Richard Phillips
Background Inertial measurement units (IMUs) with high-resolution sensors such as accelerometers are now used extensively to study fine-scale behavior in a wide range of marine and terrestrial animals. Robust and…20 February, 2021 by Michael Collins, Melody Clark
The adaptive value of phenotypic plasticity for performance under single stressors is well documented. However, plasticity may only truly be adaptive in the natural multifactorial environment if it confers resilience…Read more on Transcriptional frontloading contributes to cross‐tolerance between stressors
18 February, 2021 by Cecilia Liszka, Clara Manno, Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser
Diel vertical migration is a widespread behaviour amongst zooplankton, yet its effect on the rate at which individuals respire remains poorly understood. To address this, we investigated the effect of…
17 February, 2021 by Peter Convey
Bioremediation of hydrocarbons has received much attention in recent decades, particularly relating to fuel and other oils. While of great relevance globally, there has recently been increasing interest in hydrocarbon…17 February, 2021 by Louis-Alexandre Couston
Trapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet lie over 400 subglacial lakes, which are considered to be extreme, isolated, yet viable habitats for microbial life. The physical conditions within subglacial lakes…Read more on Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes
17 February, 2021 by Lily Bentley, Richard Phillips
Diving is an ecologically important behaviour that provides air-breathing predators with opportunities to capture prey, but that also increases their exposure to incidental mortality (bycatch) in commercial fisheries. In this…
17 February, 2021 by Lily Bentley, Richard Phillips
Diving is an ecologically important behaviour that provides air-breathing predators with opportunities to capture prey, but that also increases their exposure to incidental mortality (bycatch) in commercial fisheries. In this…
16 February, 2021
Specified Dynamics Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere‐ionosphere eXtension simulations are used to investigate the solar migrating semidiurnal tide (SW2) around September equinox at middle to high latitudes in…16 February, 2021 by David Barnes, Samuel Hall, Simon Morley
Environmental conditions of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica have varied little for >5 million years but are now changing. Here we investigated how warming affects competition for space. Little considered…16 February, 2021 by David Barnes, Lloyd Peck, Simon Morley
Environmental conditions of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica have varied little for >5 million years but are now changing. Here we investigated how warming affects competition for space. Little considered…
15 February, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, James Smith, Katrin Linse, Paul Anker
The seafloor beneath floating ice shelves accounts roughly a third of the Antarctic’s 5 million km2 of continental shelf. Prior to this study, our knowledge of these habitats and the…12 February, 2021 by Louis-Alexandre Couston
Iceberg meltwater is a critical freshwater flux from the cryosphere to the oceans. Global climate simulations therefore require simple and accurate parametrizations of iceberg melting. Iceberg shape is an important…
11 February, 2021 by Richard Phillips, William Mills
Northern Macronectes halli and southern giant petrels M. giganteus are opportunistic predators and the dominant avian scavengers in sub-Antarctic and Antarctic ecosystems. At South Georgia, there are globally important breeding…Read more on Long-term inter- and intraspecific dietary variation in sibling seabird species
9 February, 2021 by Lara Perez Miguel, Victoria Peck
International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 382 in the Scotia Sea's “Iceberg Alley” recovered among the most continuous and highest resolution stratigraphic records in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica spanning…7 February, 2021 by Dani Jones
Dotson Ice Shelf (DIS) in West Antarctica is undergoing rapid basal melting driven by intrusions of warm, saline Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) onto the continental shelf. Meltwater from DIS is…
4 February, 2021 by Thomas Bauska
During the last glacial period, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) closely followed Antarctic temperature on millennial timescales. This strong correlation between Antarctic climate and atmospheric CO2 has led to suggestions that…Read more on Abrupt changes in the global carbon cycle during the last glacial period
4 February, 2021
Cephalopods play a major role in marine ecosystems, yet very little is known about the dynamics of their habitat use and trophic ecology across the stages of their life cycle,…
3 February, 2021 by Peter Convey
Collembola are a key component of the soil biota globally, playing an important role in community and ecosystem dynamics. Equally significant are their associated microbiomes, that can contribute to key…
3 February, 2021 by Gaelle Veyssiere, Jeremy Wilkinson
Arctic sea ice is shifting from a year-round to a seasonal sea ice cover. This substantial transformation, via a reduction in Arctic sea ice extent and a thinning of its…
2 February, 2021 by David Barnes, Martin Collins, Simon Morley
Bluenose warehou (Hyperoglyphe antarctica) is a popular commercial fish in Australia and New Zealand, but its biology and ecology are very poorly known in other regions where it is found.…
1 February, 2021 by Peter Convey
Assessment of the diversity of algal assemblages in Antarctica has until now largely relied on traditional microbiological culture approaches. Here we used DNA metabarcoding through high-throughput sequencing (HTS) to assess…
1 February, 2021 by David Pearce
The Tibetan Plateau, also termed ‘the Third Pole’ harbors the largest number of high-altitude lakes in the world. Due to the presence of extreme conditions such as low temperature and…Read more on Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions
1 February, 2021 by Kevin Hughes, Peter Convey
The flightless midge Eretmoptera murphyi is thought to be continuing its invasion of Signy Island via the treads of personnel boots. Current boot-wash biosecurity protocols in the Antarctic region rely…
1 February, 2021 by Jane Francis
Paleocene leaf floras are rare in high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, where studies have shown higher taxonomic diversity compared to Northern Hemisphere equivalents. The floras provide valuable insights into…Read more on Paleocene high-latitude leaf flora of Antarctica Part 1: Entire-margined angiosperms
1 February, 2021 by Jane Francis
Carbon and oxygen isotopes (δ13C and δ18O) in tree rings are widely used to reconstruct palaeoclimate variables such as temperature during the Holocene (12 thousand years ago - present), and…
1 February, 2021 by Clara Manno, Emily Rowlands
Polar marine ecosystems may have higher sensitivity than other ecosystems to plastic pollution due to recurrent physical and biological features; presence of ice and high UV radiation, slow growth rates…
1 February, 2021 by Richard Phillips
1. As temperatures rise, timing of reproduction is changing at different rates across trophic levels, potentially resulting in asynchrony between consumers and their resources. The match‐mismatch hypothesis (MMH) suggests that…
1 February, 2021 by Martin Collins
Yellowfin tuna are the mainstay of the traditional tuna fisheries in St Helena waters, but there is limited knowledge of their ecology and feeding behaviour in the area. In this…
1 February, 2021 by Gareth Marshall
The Arctic continues to warm at a much faster rate than the global average. One process contributing to ‘Arctic amplification’ involves changes in low-frequency macro-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and their…
1 February, 2021 by Martin Collins, Ryan Saunders
Fish morphometric relationships are key tools for fisheries science and studies of food web dynamics and predator foraging behaviour, but parameterisations are limited for Southern Ocean myctophids (Family Myctophidae). New…1 February, 2021 by Chester Sands
Species inventories are essential to the implementation of conservation policies to mitigate biodiversity loss and maintain ecosystem services and their value to the society. This is particularly topical with respect…
1 February, 2021 by Lloyd Peck, Luca Telesca
Accurate biological models are critical to predict biotic responses to climate change and human‐caused disturbances. Current understanding of organismal responses to change stems from studies over relatively short timescales. However,…
1 February, 2021 by Christian Buckingham
In this study, we examine the role of curvature in modifying frontal stability. We first evaluate the classical criterion that the Coriolis parameter, f, multiplied by the Ertel potential vorticity…
1 February, 2021 by Christian Buckingham
We continue our study of the role of curvature in modifying frontal stability. In Part 1, we obtained an instability criterion valid for curved fronts and vortices in gradient wind…
1 February, 2021
Interplanetary human missions to Mars and beyond will suppose a very demanding physical and psychological environment for future astronauts. Isolation, confinement, hypoxia or hypercapnia in a less pressurized atmosphere, darkness…
1 February, 2021 by Michael Rose
Year-round monitoring of Erebus volcano (Ross Island) has proved challenging due to the difficulties of maintaining continuous power for scientific instruments, especially through the Antarctic winter. We sought a potential…Read more on Harnessing Erebus volcano’s thermal energy to power year-round monitoring
1 February, 2021 by Leo Middleton, Paul Holland
The transport of heat and salt through turbulent ice shelf-ocean boundary layers is a large source of uncertainty within ocean models of ice shelf cavities. This study uses small-scale, high…
1 February, 2021 by Hannah Cubaynes, Penny Clarke
The emergence of very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery (less than 1 m spatial resolution) is creating new opportunities within the fields of ecology and conservation biology. The advancement of sub-meter…Read more on The potential of satellite imagery for surveying whales
1 February, 2021 by Adrian Jenkins, Louis-Alexandre Couston, Paul Holland
We report an idealized numerical study of a melting and freezing solid adjacent to a turbulent, buoyancy-affected shear flow, in order to improve our understanding of topography generation by phase…Read more on Topography generation by melting and freezing in a turbulent shear flow.
1 February, 2021
Behavioral mechanisms for avoiding inbreeding are common in the natural world and are believed to have evolved as a response to the negative consequences of inbreeding. However, despite a fundamental…29 January, 2021 by Huw Griffiths
Understanding the vulnerability of marine calcifiers to ocean acidification is a critical issue, especially in the Southern Ocean (SO), which is likely to be the one of the first, and…28 January, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, Katrin Linse, Rowan Whittle
Habitat heterogeneity is important for maintaining high levels of benthic biodiversity. The Prince Gustav Channel, on the Eastern Antarctic Peninsula, is characterized by an array of habitat types, ranging from…
26 January, 2021 by Kevin Newsham
We report a metabarcoding study documenting the fungal taxa in 29 barren fellfield soils sampled from along a 1,650 km transect encompassing almost the entire maritime Antarctic (60–72°S) and the…25 January, 2021 by Joseph Ulanowski
We report on the electric field variations during Saharan dust advection over two atmospheric remote stations in Greece, using synergistic observations of the vertical atmospheric electric field strength (Ez) at…
21 January, 2021
Understanding the underlying ecological factors that affect the distribution patterns of organisms is vital for their conservation. Cephalopods such as giant warty squids Moroteuthopsis longimana are important in the diets…20 January, 2021 by Philip Trathan, Victoria Warwick-Evans
Global targets for area-based conservation and management must move beyond threshold-based targets alone and must account for the quality of such areas. In the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, a region…
19 January, 2021 by Anne Flink
The submarine landforms and shallow sediment record are presented from Hambergbukta, southeastern Spitsbergen using swath‐bathymetric, subbottom acoustic, and sediment core data. The mapped landforms include large terminal and end‐moraines with…
19 January, 2021 by Huw Griffiths
Whilst both plastic production and inputs at sea have increased since the 1950s, several modelling studies predict a further increase in the coming years in these respective quantities. We compiled…Read more on Are litter, plastic and microplastic quantities increasing in the ocean?
19 January, 2021 by Thomas Lachlan-Cope
The correct representation of Antarctic clouds in atmospheric models is crucial for accurate projections of the future Antarctic climate. This is particularly true for summer clouds which play a critical…19 January, 2021 by Thomas Bracegirdle
Numerical climate models are used to project future climate change due to both anthropogenic and natural causes. Differences between projections from different climate models are a major source of uncertainty…
18 January, 2021 by Simeon Hill
The Southern Ocean provides strong contrasts in rates and directions of change in temperature and sea ice between its sectors, but it is unknown how these affect plankton species that…
18 January, 2021 by Peter Convey
This study provides the summary of the reports of the geographical distribution in the Maritime Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions of Parochlus steinenii (Gercke, 1889) (Diptera, Chironomidae), the only flying insect…Read more on Records of Parochlus steinenii in the Maritime Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions
16 January, 2021 by Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Changes in electron flux in Earth's outer radiation belt can be modeled using a diffusion‐based framework. Diffusion coefficients D for such models are often constructed from statistical averages of observed…
16 January, 2021 by Andrew Orr, Tony Phillips
The presence of clouds in the Arctic regulates the surface energy budget (SEB) over the sea‐ice surface and the ice‐free ocean. Following several previous field campaigns, the cloud‐radiation relationship, including…
15 January, 2021 by Philip Hollyman
The North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent shelf seas play a crucial role in global climate. To better constrain long-term natural variability and marine-terrestrial linkages in this region, a network of…
14 January, 2021 by David Barnes, Eugene Murphy, Kevin Hughes, Michael Meredith, Rachel Cavanagh, Simeon Hill, Susie Grant
The Southern Ocean supports ecosystem services that are important on a global scale. Climate change and human activities (tourism, fishing, and research) will affect both the demand for, and the…Read more on Future risk for Southern Ocean ecosystem services under climate change
11 January, 2021 by Louise Sime, Maria Vittoria Guarino
The modeling of paleoclimate, using physically based tools, is increasingly seen as a strong out-of-sample test of the models that are used for the projection of future climate changes. New…
11 January, 2021 by Irene Malmierca Vallet, Louise Sime, Maria Vittoria Guarino
The Last interglacial (LIG) is a period with increased summer insolation at high northern latitudes, which results in strong changes in the terrestrial and marine cryosphere. Understanding the mechanisms for…8 January, 2021 by Katrin Linse
The Prince Gustav Channel is a narrow seaway located in the western Weddell Sea on the northeastern-most tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The channel is notable for both its deep…
7 January, 2021 by Tracy Moffat-Griffin
In this study we explore the seasonal variability of the mean winds and diurnal and semidiurnal tidal amplitude and phases, as well as the Reynolds stress components during 2019, utilizing…
6 January, 2021 by Peter Convey
We assessed fungal diversity in deep-sea sediments obtained from different depths in the Southern Ocean using the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region of nuclear ribosomal DNA bymetabarcoding through high-throughput…Read more on Fungi present in Antarctic deep-sea sediments assessed using DNA metabarcoding
5 January, 2021 by Anna Jones, Alexandra Weiss, James France, Jonathan Witherstone, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
Emissions of methane (CH4) from offshore oil and gas installations are poorly ground-truthed, and quantification relies heavily on the use of emission factors and activity data. As part of the…4 January, 2021 by Kevin Newsham
The soils of the Maritime and sub‐Antarctic experience extreme environmental conditions but nonetheless host biological communities which can survive low temperatures, limited water availability and short‐day lengths or even the…Read more on Lean and keen: microbial activity in soils from the Maritime Antarctic
4 January, 2021
In the Southern Ocean and adjacent waters, early stages of cephalopods play an important role in food webs as prey to top predators, but few is known regarding their biology…2 January, 2021 by Hamish Pritchard
Glaciers in the Himalaya–Karakoram mountain ranges harbour approximately half of the ice volume in High-mountain Asia and modulate the flow of freshwater to almost 869 million people within the Indus,…Read more on Glacial change and hydrological implications in the Himalaya and Karakoram
1 January, 2021 by John King, Steve Colwell
A World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Extremes Evaluation Committee investigated an observation of −69.6 °C by Klinck Automatic Weather Station (AWS) in Greenland on 22 December 1991 as the lowest temperature…
1 January, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, Lloyd Peck
The calving of A‐68, the 5,800‐km2, 1‐trillion‐ton iceberg shed from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in July 2017, is one of over 10 significant ice‐shelf loss events in the past…
1 January, 2021 by Chester Sands, David Barnes
Precautionary conservation and cooperative global governance are needed to protect Antarctic blue carbon: the world’s largest increasing natural form of carbon storage with high sequestration potential. As patterns of ice‐loss…
1 January, 2021 by Lara Perez Miguel, Victoria Peck
Scotia Sea and the Drake Passage is key towards understanding the development of modern oceanic circulation patterns and their implications for ice sheet growth and decay. The sedimentary record of…
1 January, 2021 by Alexandra Weiss, John King, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
The Iceland and Greenland Seas are a crucial region for the climate system, being the headwaters of the lower limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Investigating the atmosphere–ocean–ice processes…1 January, 2021 by Lloyd Peck
We present the results from our 12th annual horizon scan of issues likely to impact biological conservation in the future. From a list of 97 topics, our global panel of…Read more on A 2021 horizon scan of emerging global biological conservation issues
1 January, 2021 by Tracy Moffat-Griffin
Atmospheric tides play a critical role in the dynamics and coupling of mesosphere and lower-thermosphere (MLT). Global Circulation Models (GCMs) that aim to span the lower, middle and upper atmosphere…
1 January, 2021 by Jennifer Jackson
The massive impact that open-boat historical whaling (18th to 20th centuries) had on whale populations has been traditionally estimated from records of oil and baleen plate production. However, an unknown…
1 January, 2021 by Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne
The resonant interaction of energetic particles with plasma waves, such as chorus and plasmaspheric hiss waves, plays a direct and crucial role in the acceleration and loss of radiation belt…Read more on Multi‐parameter chorus and plasmaspheric hiss wave models
1 January, 2021 by Peter Convey
We evaluated the fungal diversity in two lakes on the South Shetland Islands, using DNA metabarcoding through high-throughput sequencing (HTS). A microcosm experiment was deployed for two consecutive years in…
1 January, 2021 by Philip Trathan, Richard Phillips
The wandering albatross, Diomedea exulans, is a globally threatened species breeding at a number of sites within the Southern Ocean. Across the South Georgia archipelago, there are differences in population…
1 January, 2021 by Kevin Hughes, Peter Convey, Sally Thorpe
The non-native midge Eretmoptera murphyi is Antarctica’s most persistent non-native insect and is known to impact the terrestrial ecosystems. It inhabits by considerably increasing litter turnover and availability of soil…1 January, 2021 by Robert Larter
Executive Statement: Geology is the science of how the Earth functions and has evolved and, as such, it can contribute to our understanding of the climate system and how it…1 January, 2021 by Philip Leat
Abundant mantle-derived ultramafic xenoliths occur in Cenozoic (7.7-1.5 Ma) mafic alkaline volcanic rocks along the former active margin of West Antarctica, that extends from the northern Antarctic Peninsula to Jones…1 January, 2021
Cephalopods play an important role in the Antarctic ecosystem, being consumed by a wide range of predators such as whales, fish, seals, albatrosses and penguins. To understand predator-prey interactions between…Read more on Cephalopod beak guide for the Southern Ocean: An update on taxonomy (revised edition)
1 January, 2021 by Peter Convey
During the Penang Hill BioBlitz of October 2017, our survey team collected 16 morphospecies of subaerial algae for the first time from tree bark, branches and leaves, including tree tops.…Read more on First records of subaerial cyanobacteria and chlorophytes from Penang Hill.
1 January, 2021 by Philip Trathan