Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme
Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic islands and surrounding Southern Ocean are regarded as one of the planet’s last remaining wildernesses, ‘insulated from threat by [their] remoteness and protection under the Antarctic Treaty System’1 . Antarctica encompasses some of the coldest, windiest and driest habi...
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ftunivcapetownir:oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/26013 2024-09-15T17:45:54+00:00 Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme Ansorge, Isabelle J Skelton, Paul Bekker, Annie de Bruyn, P J Nico Butterworth, Doug S Cilliers, Pierre Cooper, John Cowan, Don A Dorrington, Rosemary Fawcett, Sarah Fietz, Susanne Findlay, Ken P Froneman, P William Grantham, Geoff H Greve, Michelle Hedding, David Hofmeyr, G J Greg Kosch, Michael le Roux, Peter Lucas, Mike MacHutcho, Keith Meiklejohn, Ian Nel, Werner Pistorius, Pierre Ryan, Peter Stander, Johan Swart, Sebastiaan Treasure, Anne Vichi, Marcello Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine 2017-06 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26013 eng eng CrossMark Marine Resource Assessment and Management Group Faculty of Science University of Cape Town http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26013 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ South African Journal of Science http://www.sajs.co.za/ Journal Article 2017 ftunivcapetownir 2024-06-25T04:01:57Z Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic islands and surrounding Southern Ocean are regarded as one of the planet’s last remaining wildernesses, ‘insulated from threat by [their] remoteness and protection under the Antarctic Treaty System’1 . Antarctica encompasses some of the coldest, windiest and driest habitats on earth. Within the Southern Ocean, sub-Antarctic islands are found between the Sub-Antarctic Front to the north and the Polar Front to the south. Lying in a transition zone between warmer subtropical and cooler Antarctic waters, these islands are important sentinels from which to study climate change.2 A growing body of evidence3,4 now suggests that climatically driven changes in the latitudinal boundaries of these two fronts define the islands’ short- and long-term atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Consequently, sub-Antarctic islands and their associated terrestrial and marine ecosystems offer ideal natural laboratories for studying ecosystem response to change.5 For example, a recent study6 indicates that the shift in the geographical position of the oceanic fronts has disrupted inshore marine ecosystems, with a possible impact on top predators. Importantly, biotic responses are variable as indicated by different population trends of these top predators.7,8 When studied collectively, these variations in species’ demographic patterns point to complex spatial and temporal changes within the broader sub-Antarctic ecosystem, and invite further examination of the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic drivers. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica South African National Antarctic Programme Southern Ocean University of Cape Town: OpenUCT |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Cape Town: OpenUCT |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcapetownir |
language |
English |
description |
Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic islands and surrounding Southern Ocean are regarded as one of the planet’s last remaining wildernesses, ‘insulated from threat by [their] remoteness and protection under the Antarctic Treaty System’1 . Antarctica encompasses some of the coldest, windiest and driest habitats on earth. Within the Southern Ocean, sub-Antarctic islands are found between the Sub-Antarctic Front to the north and the Polar Front to the south. Lying in a transition zone between warmer subtropical and cooler Antarctic waters, these islands are important sentinels from which to study climate change.2 A growing body of evidence3,4 now suggests that climatically driven changes in the latitudinal boundaries of these two fronts define the islands’ short- and long-term atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Consequently, sub-Antarctic islands and their associated terrestrial and marine ecosystems offer ideal natural laboratories for studying ecosystem response to change.5 For example, a recent study6 indicates that the shift in the geographical position of the oceanic fronts has disrupted inshore marine ecosystems, with a possible impact on top predators. Importantly, biotic responses are variable as indicated by different population trends of these top predators.7,8 When studied collectively, these variations in species’ demographic patterns point to complex spatial and temporal changes within the broader sub-Antarctic ecosystem, and invite further examination of the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic drivers. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Ansorge, Isabelle J Skelton, Paul Bekker, Annie de Bruyn, P J Nico Butterworth, Doug S Cilliers, Pierre Cooper, John Cowan, Don A Dorrington, Rosemary Fawcett, Sarah Fietz, Susanne Findlay, Ken P Froneman, P William Grantham, Geoff H Greve, Michelle Hedding, David Hofmeyr, G J Greg Kosch, Michael le Roux, Peter Lucas, Mike MacHutcho, Keith Meiklejohn, Ian Nel, Werner Pistorius, Pierre Ryan, Peter Stander, Johan Swart, Sebastiaan Treasure, Anne Vichi, Marcello Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine |
spellingShingle |
Ansorge, Isabelle J Skelton, Paul Bekker, Annie de Bruyn, P J Nico Butterworth, Doug S Cilliers, Pierre Cooper, John Cowan, Don A Dorrington, Rosemary Fawcett, Sarah Fietz, Susanne Findlay, Ken P Froneman, P William Grantham, Geoff H Greve, Michelle Hedding, David Hofmeyr, G J Greg Kosch, Michael le Roux, Peter Lucas, Mike MacHutcho, Keith Meiklejohn, Ian Nel, Werner Pistorius, Pierre Ryan, Peter Stander, Johan Swart, Sebastiaan Treasure, Anne Vichi, Marcello Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme |
author_facet |
Ansorge, Isabelle J Skelton, Paul Bekker, Annie de Bruyn, P J Nico Butterworth, Doug S Cilliers, Pierre Cooper, John Cowan, Don A Dorrington, Rosemary Fawcett, Sarah Fietz, Susanne Findlay, Ken P Froneman, P William Grantham, Geoff H Greve, Michelle Hedding, David Hofmeyr, G J Greg Kosch, Michael le Roux, Peter Lucas, Mike MacHutcho, Keith Meiklejohn, Ian Nel, Werner Pistorius, Pierre Ryan, Peter Stander, Johan Swart, Sebastiaan Treasure, Anne Vichi, Marcello Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine |
author_sort |
Ansorge, Isabelle J |
title |
Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme |
title_short |
Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme |
title_full |
Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme |
title_fullStr |
Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme |
title_full_unstemmed |
Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme |
title_sort |
exploring south africa’s southern frontier: a 20-year vision for polar research through the south african national antarctic programme |
publisher |
CrossMark |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26013 |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica South African National Antarctic Programme Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica South African National Antarctic Programme Southern Ocean |
op_source |
South African Journal of Science http://www.sajs.co.za/ |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26013 |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
_version_ |
1810493832506114048 |