I moved to the United Kingdom from Australia in 2005 to take up the post of Molecular Phylogeneticist. Since then I have participated in several Antarctic expeditions led by British Antarctic Survey, Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany) and National Science Foundation (USA) sampling the sea floor of the Weddell, Scotia, Bellingshausen, Amundsen and Ross Seas. I have spent time working at King Edward Point laboratory on South Georgia and the Bonner Laboratory at Rothera (West Antarctic Peninsula). Since 2010 I have been teaching the Molecular Evolution component of the Polar Microbiology course at the University of Norway in Svalbard.
Planet Earth is an ever-changing environment with both great and subtle interactions between the physical and biological realms. Our team has identified one such interaction that may be the most significant negative feedback to climate change (Peck et al. 2010 Global Change Biology); as sea ice decreases in the polar seas, algal blooms – which absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) – tend to occur over shallower waters. Over deeper waters microbes recycle the dead algal cells as they drift down to the depths and the carbon they have assimilated is released into the water. Over shallower waters the cells are more likely to reach the bottom and be eaten by the encrusting organisms that live there so that the carbon is immobilized into their shells and skeletons. Upon their death, the carbon is then buried and thus removed from the carbon cycle. I am interested how individuals and assemblages are maintained over time, particularly assemblages that are unique such as on the continental shelf of Antarctica and the smaller shelf areas of the Islands of the Southern Ocean. Individuals respond to change by either adapting to it, moving to regions they are better adapted to or dying out. How assemblages respond to change may impact the “ecosystem services”, such as natural carbon capture and storage (CCS) identified in Southern Ocean species (Barnes 2015 Current Biology; Barnes et al. 2016 Global Change Biology). Signatures of demographic changes can be identified in the DNA of the ancestors of those animals and plants that survived the change, even after many millions of years allowing us to see how species reacted to changes in the past and help us predict how they will change in the future (Sands et al. Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution).
My major interest is the inference of processes that underlie observed patterns of diversity, principally of invertebrates. Practically this requires techniques used in biogeography, molecular systematics, phylogeography and population genetics, incorporating the *omics tools. Conceptually this requires the teasing apart of contributing forces of adaptation and drift, and how these two forces are affected by environmental and demographic changes.
Scourse, J., Roman Gonzalez, A., Barnes, D., Sands, C., Hollyman, P., Munoz Ramirez, C., Bascur, M., Jenkins, S., Goodall-Copestake, W., Janosik, A., Whitaker, J., Garza, T., Pienkowski, A., Zwerschke, N., Van Landeghem, K., Featherstone, A., Guzzi, A., Alexandroff, S., Butler, P., … Trofimova, T. (2024). Biological specimen list of marine organisms collected from the West Antarctic Peninsula between 2017 and 2020 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/b024841b-2520-43f8-96c7-3abc78cd04d2
Retallick, K., Van Landeghem, K., Fremand, A., Howard, F., Sands, C., Roman-Gonzalez, A., Barnes, D., Jenkins, S., Munoz-Ramirez, C., & Scourse, J. (2021). Seafloor bathymetry of Sheldon Cove, Börgen Bay and Marian Cove, merged and gridded from EM122 multibeam echosounder data collected for the project NE/P003087/1 (2017-2020) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/1b4ab7bc-4272-4b16-a642-565e40544b0a
British Antarctic Survey (2015). Raw acoustic data collected by ship-borne EK60 echo sounder in Southern Ocean (Feb – Apr 2008) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/69645711-2472-49d5-9836-7398cc7a5ec1
This three-year project aims to leave a legacy of robust information about the marine ecosystem as well as oceanographic and food web modelling that will provide the scientific information necessary to develop policies to manage marine ecosystem resources, especially those relating to food security and eco-tourism.
Polar Expertise – Supporting Development
AIMS gathers baseline scientific data on Ascension Island’s globally important marine wildlife and fisheries to help the island government manage and conserve its marine resources.
The ASCCC Project investigates, quantifies and understands the role of polar and subpolar seabeds in the carbon cycle, particularly in response to climate change.
A team of scientists set sail this week (12 March) for the remote South Atlantic islands of Tristan da Cunha and St Helena. This mission is part of BAS’ commitment […]
The amount of plastic washing up onto the shores of remote South Atlantic islands is 10 times greater than it was a decade ago, according to new research published today […]
A team of scientists on board the RRS James Clark Ross (JCR) has conducted marine biodiversity research around the Island of St Helena with a team of UK based and […]
The RRS James Clark Ross left the Falkland Islands yesterday (15th March) and is travelling towards Tristan Da Cunha, with expected arrival on the 22nd March. The vessel will survey […]
A new marine biodiversity study in one of the largest Marine Protected Areas in the world reveals the impact of environmental change on subantarctic seabed animals and answers big questions […]
New species recovered from Amundsen Sea More than thirty new, and, as yet unclassified, species of marine life were discovered during a science expedition to the Amundsen Sea off Pine […]
