Climate change drives expansion of Antarctic ice-free habitat

Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity occurs almost exclusively in ice-free areas that cover less than 1% of the continent. Climate change will alter the extent and configuration of ice-free areas, yet the distribution and severity of these effects remain unclear. Here we quantify the impact of twenty-...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature
Main Authors: Lee, JR, Raymond, B, Bracegirdle, TJ, Chades, I, Fuller, RA, Shaw, JD, Terauds, A
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2017
Subjects:
Environmental Sciences
Ecological Applications
Ecological Impacts of Climate Change
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22996
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28658207
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118139
Description
Summary:Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity occurs almost exclusively in ice-free areas that cover less than 1% of the continent. Climate change will alter the extent and configuration of ice-free areas, yet the distribution and severity of these effects remain unclear. Here we quantify the impact of twenty-first century climate change on ice-free areas under two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate forcing scenarios using temperature-index melt modelling. Under the strongest forcing scenario, ice-free areas could expand by over 17,000 km 2 by the end of the century, close to a 25% increase. Most of this expansion will occur in the Antarctic Peninsula, where a threefold increase in ice-free area could drastically change the availability and connectivity of biodiversity habitat. Isolated ice-free areas will coalesce, and while the effects on biodiversity are uncertain, we hypothesize that they could eventually lead to increasing regional-scale biotic homogenization, the extinction of less-competitive species and the spread of invasive species.

Similar Items