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Antarctic hairgrass expansion in the South Shetland archipelago and Antarctic Peninsula revisited

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Abstract

Populations of both native higher Antarctic plants, Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis, increased during the last decades. However, for D. antarctica, previous population studies on the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula have been too sporadic, patchy, and methodologically different to allow general conclusions. Our aim was to compare sites with D. antarctica along a north–south latitudinal transect with an integral census method to assess the possible impact of climatic change on grass population dynamics. During two summer seasons (2009–2010), plant populations were censed on Fildes and Coppermine Peninsula and several localities on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Largest plant populations were found on Fildes Peninsula with vegetation cover (VC) of 44–46%. Six out of eleven stands of D. antarctica on Coppermine Peninsula were new records, with increasing plant number and VC (0.1–22%). In the Antarctic Peninsula, contrarily to our expectation, only at Forbes Point, D. antarctica VC was relatively high (ca. 2%) and a new stand of C. quitensis was found. At three previously reported sites, plants had disappeared. Our monitoring confirms that northern D. antarctica populations are expanding, but that this expansion is not continuous along the Antarctic Peninsula and inconsistent with the gradient of relative temperature increase in north–south direction. We suggest that other abiotic and biotic factors are influencing the colonization and expansion of vascular plants in this particular ecosystem.

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Acknowledgments

We thank INACH and staff of Julio Escudero Scientific Station for the logistic facilities offered during the ECA (45th–46th Antarctic Scientific Expedition) of 2009 and 2010. Many thanks also to the staff of the Chilean station Gabriel González Videla, especially the crew of 2009/2010 for supporting the exploration of Paradise Harbour sites; Dr. Jorge Carrasco of the Chilean Meteorological Office for providing the climatic data; to bryologists Juan Larraín Benoit and Gloria Gallegos–Haro of University of Concepción for determining the mosses species. We also thank Dr. Götz Palfner, University of Concepción, for his critical suggestions and revision of the English text. We thank the effort of the two referees who helped us to substantially improve the manuscript before publication. This study was done under the project INACH T0307.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Botánica, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160 C, Concepción, Chile

    G. A. Torres-Mellado

  2. Departamento Científico, Instituto Antártico Chileno, Plaza Gobernador Benjamín Muñoz Gamero 1055, Punta Arenas, Chile

    R. Jaña

  3. Fundación Centro de Estudios del Cuaternario Fuego-Patagonia y Antártica (CEQUA), Punta Arenas, Chile

    R. Jaña

  4. Centro de Biotecnología, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160 C, Concepción, Chile

    G. A. Torres-Mellado & M. A. Casanova-Katny

Authors
  1. G. A. Torres-Mellado
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  2. R. Jaña
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  3. M. A. Casanova-Katny
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Correspondence to G. A. Torres-Mellado.

Additional information

This article is an invited contribution on Global Tipping Points (Global Change and Antarctic Terrestrial Biodiversity) and part of the SCAR EBA programme. I. Hogg and D. Wall (Guest Editors).

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 2.

Table 2 Biotic and abiotic characteristics of explored sites around Danco Coast and Paradise Harbour localities, Antarctic Peninsula
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Torres-Mellado, G.A., Jaña, R. & Casanova-Katny, M.A. Antarctic hairgrass expansion in the South Shetland archipelago and Antarctic Peninsula revisited. Polar Biol 34, 1679–1688 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-011-1099-6

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