Passive warming reduces stress and shifts reproductive effort in the Antarctic moss, Polytrichastrum alpinum

• Published in: Annals of Botany
• Main Authors: Shortlidge, Erin E., Eppley, Sarah M., Kohler, Hans, Rosenstiel, Todd N., Zúñiga, Gustavo E., Casanova-Katny, Angélica
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 2017
• Subjects: Original Articles; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Fildes; Fildes peninsula; King George Island; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5218369/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27794516; https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcw201

Background and Aims The Western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, and many biotic communities inhabiting this dynamic region are responding to these well-documented climatic shifts. Yet some of the most prevalent organisms of terrestrial Antarctica, the mosses, and their responses to warming have been relatively overlooked and understudied. In this research, the impacts of 6 years of passive warming were investigated using open top chambers (OTCs), on moss communities of Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, Antarctica.