Faster, greener, and more competitive? How will vegetation alter in a changing Antarctic?

The unique Antarctic terrestrial vegetation serves as an early warning system in understanding ecosystem responses to climate change. This project evaluates the expansion of Antarctic vegetation cover and biomass and assesses its resilience by combining remote sensing and physiological measurements, improving our understanding of Antarctica's terrestrial biosphere in the context of global carbon cycles.

Project Background: Climate change is impacting polar regions most severely. The Antarctic terrestrial biosphere, the vegetation of which is dominated by algae, bryophytes and lichens, is thought to be particularly sensitive and therefore considered to be one of the more significant baseline environments for the study of global climate change (1,2).

In situ data have revealed distribution shifts, and many species have expanded their ranges in a warming Antarctic. In the terrestrial realm habitat availability is predicted to increase by ~25% in the next century under current global warming scenarios (3). Deglaciated terrains can be colonised rapidly (4,5) and especially taxa with wider ecological response amplitudes are predicted to thrive (6,7).

Warmer temperatures boost terrestrial ecosystem productivity: for instance, between 1991 and 2002, with increasing temperature, lichens increased their growth rates by 124% (8). Moss growth rates have quadrupled over the past ca. 50-years (9) and the two Antarctic native vascular plant species have proliferated (10).