Response of antarctic terrestrial microarthropods to long-term climate manipulations

By Peter Convey, P. Pugh, C. Jackson, A. W. Murray, C. T. Ruhland, Fusheng Xiong, T. Day. 2002

120 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The terrestrial biota of the Antarctic Peninsula region are experiencing marked changes in climate, especially rising temperatures, precipitation, and UV-B radiation—a combination unique worldwide. These changes, combined with the inherent simplicity of terrestrial communities, have led to their use as “model systems” to predict the future climate change responses of biota at lower latitudes. However, studies integrating responses at different levels of the community trophic structure are lacking. We report here the consequences on the soil microarthropod community of a four-year, multivariate, climate-manipulation experiment carried out over vegetation near Palmer Station, Anvers Island, western Antarctic Peninsula. The experiment used a multifactorial randomized-block design, deploying filters to raise temperatures and reduce ultraviolet (UV)-B (280–320 nm) or both UV-B and UV-A (320–400 nm) radiation of existing vegetation, with further water and fertilizer amendment treatments. Seven microarthropod species recovered in sufficient numbers for statistical analyses showed considerable spatial aggregation independent of treatment, a feature typical of many soil invertebrates. Analyses using negative binomial generalized linear modeling identified further significant and consistent treatment impacts on both individual species and species groups. Relative to controls, manipulations increasing temperature decreased numbers of microarthropods (particularly Collembola), as did exposure to near-ambient levels of UV radiation (separate significant effects for both UV-A and UV-B), while water amendment increased numbers. The impacts of temperature and water are consistent with our understanding of the importance of these two environmental variables and their interaction in Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems. The negative impact of UV (-A or -B) on arthropod heterotroph and detritivore populations in the Antarctic terrestrial food web is likely to be a secondary consequence of UV impact on vegetation characteristics. This is, again, consistent with general predictions of the impact of changing UV climate on ecosystem function.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d9bed9a03332d9540ceaefecc98ded7949eb3e6b

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Citations in the corpus

Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity in a changing world (2011, background): “…manipulation of several environmental variables as well as measuring a wider range of biological response variables (e.g. Day et al. 1999, 2001; Convey et al. 2002; Sinclair 2002; Bokhorst et al. 2007a, b, 2008) has started to allow greater integration and understanding of these experiments…”
Extreme sensitivity of biological function to temperature in Antarctic marine species (2004, background): “Organism responses to changing environments are complex, and species survival usually determined by changes in the balance of ecological factors, rather than direct effects of alterations to the physical environment (Davis et al. 1998; Convey et al. 2002).”
Microclimate impacts of passive warming methods in Antarctica: implications for climate change studies (2011, methodology): “This is also supported by desiccation stress observed in invertebrates under ventilated chambers on Anvers Island (Convey et al. 2002, 2003).”
Terrestrial biodiversity in Antarctica - recent advances and future challenges (2010, methodology): “…and in some cases multivariate approaches to the manipulation of temperature, water and radiation regimes (e.g. Bokhorst et al., 2007a,b, 2008; Convey et al., 2002; Day et al., 1999, 2001; Sinclair, 2002) has shifted the emphasis from the simple description of rapid responses to a higher…”
Biological invasions in the Antarctic: extent, impacts and implications (2005, methodology): “…biological consequences for indigenous biota are beginning to be reported, including dynamic changes in patterns of use of biochemical pathways associated with protective pigment production (Newsham et al., 2002) and negative effects on population sizes of microarthropods (Convey et al., 2002b).”
The significance of the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands for the assessment of the vulnerability of native communities to climate change, alien insect invasions and plant viruses (2011, background): “Therefore, for both flora and fauna, a slight thermal increase is likely to have a far greater impact in sub-Antarctic regions than in warmer regions (Convey 2001; Convey et al. 2002).”
Soil arthropods as indicators of water stress in Antarctic terrestrial habitats? (2003, background): “A 4-year study of habitat temperature manipulation on Anvers Island, maritime Antarctic, reported that increased temperatures lowered Collembola population numbers as did exposure to near-ambient levels of UV radiation (Convey et al., 2002).”
Effect of simulated environmental change on alpine soil arthropods (2009, result): “Warming experiments in the Antarctic region have given contradictory results on microarthropod groups (Kennedy, 1994; Convey et al., 2002; Sinclair, 2002; McGeoch et al., 2006).”
Decline in a dominant invertebrate species contributes to altered carbon cycling in a low‐diversity soil ecosystem (2008, background): “Similar, low-diversity soil communities on the Antarctic Peninsula have also exhibited sensitivity to changes in soil climate following temperature and water manipulations (Convey et al., 2002).”