This year, we will complete our “latitudinal gradient”
along the Antarctic Peninsula. For this project, we are exploring the diversity
of soil biological communities along the entire Antarctic Peninsula. We will
discover what species live in all of the places we visit. We will also compare
who lives at each site with the plants and soil chemistry to understand how the
environment influences the soil biology. That way, we can predict what will
happen to the soil biology as the environment changes.
The entire latitudinal gradient will cover 10-12 sites
along the entire length of the Peninsula. Last year, we were based at Rothera
Station, about halfway down the Peninsula, to visit the southern sites. This
year, we will visit the northern half of the Peninsula. Here’s our plan:
The red tacks are islands we definitely plan to sample.
The yellow tacks are places we hope to sample if we have time. But, of course,
with Antarctic field work, the plan can always change at the last minute if the
weather doesn’t cooperate!
This season will be very exciting for me, because I’ve
actually never been this far north in Antarctica! I’m usually much further
south where conditions are harsher, but the northern part of the Peninsula
looks more like a lush tundra, rather than a polar desert. I will see more
wildlife than I have been able to see before, and that will be very fun!
This is also the first year that our research will be
based on the research vessel. Normally, marine scientists work on the ships so
that they can sample ocean water, and we soil ecologists work from field camps
on land. But the ship is the best way for us to travel between the islands, so
we’ll be living like marine scientists for a season! We’ll be traveling and
working on a vessel called the Laurence M. Gould, which is named after a geologist that
traveled to Antarctica back in the 1929. You can read all about the ship here,
here,
and here.
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