Spatial and temporal variations in moss-inhabiting summer diatom communities from Potter Peninsula (King George Island, Antarctica)

The influence of penguin activity on soil diatom assemblages on King George Island, Antarctica with the description of a new Luticola species

Background

Ice-free areas in the Antarctic region are strongly limited. The presence of marine mammals and birds in those areas influence soil properties and vegetation composition. Studies on the terrestrial diatom flora in soils influenced by sea birds in the Maritime Antarctic region are scarce.

Methods

Samples were collected from two transects on the western shore of the Admiralty Bay region. Light and scanning electron microscopic observations and statistical analyses were conducted to consider the impact of penguin rookeries on soil diatom assemblages.

Results

The disturbance associated with the presence of penguin rookeries clearly influences the soil diatom diversity. Assemblages from areas with the highest nutrient input were characterized by a much lower diversity with only few species dominating the flora. One of recorded taxa could not be assigned to any of the known species. Therefore, based on the combination of morphological features analyzed using light and scanning electron microscopes and comparison with similar taxa in the Antarctic region and worldwide, the species is described hereby as new to science-Luticola kaweckae sp.nov. The new species is characteristic for soil habitats with strong penguin influence.

Long-term ecological changes in Mediterranean mountain lakes linked to recent climate change and Saharan dust deposition revealed by diatom analyses

Anthropogenic climate change and the recent increase of Saharan dust deposition has had substantial effects on Mediterranean alpine regions. We examined changes in diatom assemblage composition over the past ~180 years from high-resolution, dated sediment cores retrieved from six remote lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Southern Spain. In all lakes, changes in diatom composition began over a century ago, but were more pronounced after ~1970 CE, concurrent with trends in rising regional air temperature, declining precipitation, and increased Saharan dust deposition. Temperature was identified as the main predictor of diatom assemblage changes, whereas both Saharan dust deposition drivers, the Sahel precipitation index and the winter North Atlantic Oscillation, were secondary explanatory variables. Diatom compositional shifts are indicative of lake alkalinization (linked to heightened evapoconcentration and an increase in calcium-rich Saharan dust input) and reduced lake water turbulence (linked to lower water levels and reduced inflows to the lakes). Moreover, decreases in epiphytic diatom species were indicative of increasing aridity and the drying of catchment meadows. Our results support the conclusions of previous chlorophyll-a and cladoceran-based paleolimnological analyses of these same dated sedimentary records which show a regional-scale response to climate change and Saharan dust deposition in Sierra Nevada lakes and their catchments during the 20th century. However, diatom assemblages seem to respond to different atmospheric and climate-related effects than cladoceran assemblages and chlorophyll-a concentrations. The recent impact of climate change and atmospheric Saharan deposition on lake biota assemblages and water chemistry, as well as catchment water availability, will have important implications for the valuable ecosystem services that the Sierra Nevada provides.

Comparison of Diatom Paleo-Assemblages with Adjacent Limno-Terrestrial Communities on Vega Island, Antarctic Peninsula

Diatoms are useful ecological and paleolimnological indicators routinely used to reconstruct past conditions and monitor environmental change. Despite this, diatom assemblages from lake sediment cores are often difficult to interpret due to a limited knowledge of the ecology of some species, some of which may originate from the adjacent limno-terrestrial landscape. Here, we compare diatom assemblages from two recently published Antarctic lake sediment cores collected from the northeast and southwest sides of Vega Island, Antarctic Peninsula. We further compare the sediment core assemblages with adjacent modern communities inhabiting four different limno-terrestrial habitat types to gauge the importance of landscape connectivity in determining paleo-assemblage structure. We found that diatom assemblage composition was significantly different between the two cores, and our survey of modern habitats further revealed habitat type to be an important factor determining the composition of limno-terrestrial samples. Differences in modern habitats were driven primarily by Chamaepinnularia krookiformis in mosses, Nitzschia paleacea in ponds, and Fistulifera pelliculosa in streams. When modern communities were compared with paleo-assemblages through ordination, the cored lake from the northeast side, which exhibited greater hydrological connectivity with its surroundings, clustered more closely with the adjacent modern samples. Meanwhile, the cored lake from the southwest side, which was more hydrologically isolated, formed a distinct cluster separate from the others. Overall, species richness and diversity were greater on the southwest side of the island than the northeast, and the known distributions of diatom taxa supported the notion that Vega Island was a transitional zone between the Maritime and Continental Antarctic bioregions. These results collectively suggested that while environmental and spatial controls may be influential in determining diatom community composition, the unique hydrogeological setting of individual waterbodies was an important consideration for determining the assemblage structure of lake cores. This paper furthermore expanded ongoing research of diatom diversity and distributions on maritime Antarctic islands, which will improve diatom-based interpretations for regional ecological monitoring and paleolimnology in the future.

Distribution of aerophilous diatom communities associated with terrestrial green macroalgae in the South Shetland Islands, Maritime Antarctica

The establishment of diatom communities depends on environmental factors such as the type of substrate and geographic conditions that influence the dispersal processes of these organisms. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the similarity between diatom communities associated with the macroalgae Prasiola crispa (Lightfoot) Kützing in relation to spatial distance from six sampled sites located in the South Shetland Islands, Maritime Antarctica. The diatom flora associated with Prasiola crispa was represented by 23 species distributed in 15 genera. Pinnularia australoschoenfelderi Zidarova, Kopalová & Van de Vijver, Luticola austroatlantica Van de Vijver, Kopalová, S.A.Spaulding & Esposito, Luticola amoena Van der Vijver, Kopalová, Zidarova & Levkov, Pinnularia austroshetlandica (Carlson) Cleve-Euler and Psammothidium papilio (D.E. Kellogg et al.) Kopalová & Zidarova were the most abundant species in our samples, together they represented 68% of the total number of individuals collected. There was great similarity and abundance of the diatom communites among the sampled points, which resulted in the absence of a linear relationship pattern with distance between sampling points. We conclude that distance was not a factor of differentiation of Antarctic diatom communities associated with terrestrial green macroalgae. This suggests that Antarctic environments may have unique characteristics with homogeneous abiotic factors, at least in relation to this substrate.

Limnology and Aquatic Microbial Ecology of Byers Peninsula: A Main Freshwater Biodiversity Hotspot in Maritime Antarctica

Here we present a comprehensive review of the diversity revealed by research in limnology and microbial ecology conducted in Byers Peninsula (Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica) during the last two decades. The site constitutes one of the largest ice-free areas within the Antarctic Peninsula region. Since it has a high level of environmental protection, it is less human-impacted compared to other sites within the South Shetland archipelago. The main investigations in Byers Peninsula focused on the physical and chemical limnology of the lakes, ponds, rivers, and wetlands, as well as on the structure of their planktonic and benthic microbial communities, and on the functional ecology of the microbial food webs. Lakes and ponds in Byers range along a productivity gradient that extends from the less productive lakes located upland to the eutrophic coastal lakes. Their planktonic assemblages include viruses, bacteria, a metabolically diverse community of protists (i.e., autotrophs, heterotrophs, and mixotrophs), and a few metazooplankton species. Most of the studies conducted in the site demonstrate the strong influence of the physical environment (i.e., temperature, availability of light, and water) and nutrient availability in structuring these microbial communities. However, top-down biotic processes may occur in summer, when predation by zooplankton can exert a strong influence on the abundance of protists, including flagellates and ciliated protozoa. As a consequence, bacterioplankton could be partly released from the grazing pressure exerted by these protists, and proliferates fueled by external nutrient subsidies from the lake’s catchment. As summer temperatures in this region are slightly above the melting point of water, biotic processes, such as those related to the productivity of lakes during ice-free periods, could become even more relevant as warming induced by climate change progresses. The limnological research carried out at the site proves that Byers Peninsula deserves special attention in the framework of the research in extreme environments. Together with nearby sites, such as Signy Island, Byers Peninsula comprises a featuring element of the Maritime Antarctic region that represents a benchmark area relative to the global distribution and diversity of aquatic microorganisms.