Cross-disciplinarity in the advance of Antarctic ecosystem research

The biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate variability of the Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean are major components of the whole Earth system. Antarctic ecosystems are driven more strongly by the physical environment than many other marine and terrestrial ecosystems. As a consequence...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gutt, J., Isla, E., Bertler, A. N., Bodeker, G. E., Bracegirdle, T. J., Cavanagh, R. D., Comiso, J. C., Convey, P., Cummings, V., De Conto, R., De Master, D., Di Prisco, G., D'Ovidio, F., Griffiths, H. J., Khan, A. L., López Martínez, Jerónimo, Murray, A. E., Nielsen, U. N., Ott, S., Post, A., Ropert-Coudert, Y., Saucède, T., Scherer, R., Schiaparelli, S., Schloss, I. R., Smith, C. R., Stefels, J., Stevens, C., Strugnell, J. M., Trimborn, S., Verde, C., Verleyen, E., Wall, D. H., Wilson, N. G., Xavier, J. C.
Format: article
Publication Date:2018
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repository:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/681710
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/681710
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.margen.2017.09.006
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Multiple stressors
Response to environmental changes
Risk maps
Scaling
Southern Ocean
Sea-ice
Medio Ambiente
Description
Summary:The biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate variability of the Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean are major components of the whole Earth system. Antarctic ecosystems are driven more strongly by the physical environment than many other marine and terrestrial ecosystems. As a consequence, to understand ecological functioning, cross-disciplinary studies are especially important in Antarctic research. The conceptual study presented here is based on a workshop initiated by the Research Programme Antarctic Thresholds – Ecosystem Resilience and Adaptation of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, which focussed on challenges in identifying and applying cross-disciplinary approaches in the Antarctic. Novel ideas and first steps in their implementation were clustered into eight themes. These ranged from scale problems, through risk maps, and organism/ecosystem responses to multiple environmental changes and evolutionary processes. Scaling models and data across different spatial and temporal scales were identified as an overarching challenge. Approaches to bridge gaps in Antarctic research programmes included multi-disciplinary monitoring, linking biomolecular findings and simulated physical environments, as well as integrative ecological modelling. The results of advanced cross-disciplinary approaches can contribute significantly to our knowledge of Antarctic and global ecosystem functioning, the consequences of climate change, and to global assessments that ultimately benefit humankind.

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