Evaluating the importance of geothermal areas in providing refugia for Antarctic springtails through the Pleistocene glaciations ...

• Main Author: Smith, Laura
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Australian National University 2015
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25911/f6s1-7790; https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/287537

Environmental change can cause shifts in species’ distributions and affect the spatial structure of biodiversity. Pleistocene glacial cycles, for example, generally resulted in large changes to species’ ranges, reflected by lower contemporary diversity in newly-colonised areas versus long-term refugia. Antarctic glaciers would have been more extensive at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) than today, and despite a lack of evidence for ice-free refugia, terrestrial species appear to have survived on the continent for millions of years. Antarctica has multiple volcanoes that have been active since before the LGM, and geothermally warmed soils could have provided suitable ice-free environments for terrestrial species. Spatial patterns of species richness in plants and fungi have already revealed that geothermal areas are likely to have played an important role in species survival during glaciations. The influence of geothermal areas on the survival of fauna has yet to be robustly tested. Under a hypothesis of ...