Life sciences - Terrestrial ecosystems in the Antarctic

• Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1977
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; East Antarctica; South Shetland Islands; McMurdo Sound; Signy Island; Palmer Archipelago; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1977.0068; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.1977.0068

The composition of the terrestrial Antarctic flora and fauna and the distribution patterns of a number of species and of the principal vegetation types is now reasonably well established, at least in outline, for the Antarctic Peninsula region and the areas about McMurdo Sound as well as for some areas around the coastal ranges of East Antarctica. Detailed research at Signy Island has provided information concerning the biomass and productivity of certain vegetation types, decomposer organisms, microbivores, and invertebrate herbivores and predators. The main pathways of energy and nutrient within the terrestrial study sites can be regarded as reasonably established. Net annual production locally reaches very high levels (up to 800 g m -2 ). Only a tiny part of this productivity is consumed by herbivores, the greater part passing to the decomposers or persisting as peat. Most of the animals are microbivores, or graze on fungi, and in turn sustain the small number of invertebrate predators. Analysis of the range of habitats even on Signy Island indicates however that the sites for which detailed ecological information is available represent only a part of the range of environmental and ecological variation. The island is in fact characterized by a very high level of within-site diversity, some of it on a very small scale. Similarly, recent research which permits ecological comparisons with the sub-Antarctic islands of South Georgia and Macquarie, and with the McMurdo area, confirms that Signy Island displays only a small part of the very large range of diversity within the Antarctic regions as a whole. It is a reasonably representative sample of the maritime Antarctic zone in the Antarctic Peninsula region where conditions are particularly favourable for terrestrial life. Its ecological features resemble most closely those of the South Shetland Islands (except over permeable volcanic rocks) and the Palmer Archipelago on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Very different plant and animal communities occur ...