Paper about 'A snapshot of biodiversity protection in Antarctica'

Our colleagues have published a paper to analyze how well the Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity is protected by the current measures of the Protocol on Environmental Protection of the Antarctic Treaty, like the Antarctic Specially Protected Areas.

Their conclusion is that "Despite Antarctic Specially Protected Areas covering less than 2% of Antarctica, 44% of species (including seabirds, plants, lichens and invertebrates) are found in one or more protected areas. However, protection is regionally uneven and biased towards easily detectable and charismatic species like seabirds. Systematic processes to prioritize area protection using the best available data will maximize the likelihood of ensuring long-term protection and conservation of Antarctic biodiversity."

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08915-6

Last week and departure from Antarctica for the 2019 expedition

The last week at the station was very intense!
We managed to sample almost all the needed places, yet a lot of measurements and samplings were still on our lower priority to-do list.
The weather conditions were not as favourable as the week before, with strong winds, 'white out' (no visibility) and temperatures reaching -29°C with a strong wind chill. See the differences between Fig. 1 and 2!!

Fig.1: White out - view from inside the station

Fig.2: same picture as before, but in good weather condition, without 'white out'. Do you see what we mean?

We took advantage of the few hours per day when conditions were less harsh to go out and finish our work. More in situ light, temperature and photosynthetic data (on cyanobacterial biofilms/mats) were collected (Fig. 3), and thanks to the remote support of Dr. Jana Kvíderová (University of South Bohemia - Czech Republic) we were able to improve those measurements in the field.

Fig.3: in-situ measurement equipment: fluometer and light meter

 The MICROBIAN field expedition ended on the 12 of February (Fig. 4), when we flew back to Novo Airfield and we spent 4 days there. Weather conditions in Antarctica are so extreme that people can be unwillingly stucked in a station for several days or (if you are unlucky) months, even during the austral summer. But we were lucky, we were hosted at the Russian station only for 4 days, living in containers. From there, we flew back to Cape Town and then to Belgium.

Fig.4: departure from the new airstrip close to Princess Elisabeth station, Perseus airfield.

At the end of the campaign we have sent back 170 samples as well as some cryoconite samples for Dr. Zorigto Namsraev (Kurchatov Institute, Russia) who was at the Belgian Station already twice during the BELDIVA project (for more information, see the blog http://antarcticabelgium.blogspot.com/search/label/2009%20Zorigto%20Namsaraev). Now that the samples arrived in Belgium, we are ready to process them!

We are very grateful for the field support of the guide Raphäel Mayoraz who safely brought us to our sample locations, and took care of us even when working in very harsh conditions. We also warmly thank Prof. Dr. Bart Van De Vijver (Botanic Garden of Meise) who lent us the pH-meter from his laboratory and Dr. Jana Kvíderová who remotely supported Valentina in her in-situ measurements of the photosynthetic performance of cyanobacterial crusts. Many thanks also to the team of the Princess Elisabeth Station!

Keep in touch!




The MICROBIAN field team, Valentina, Quentin and Elie

A paper on 'microbial dark matter'

Dear all,
Our MICROBIAN colleagues at the University of Ghent, Sam Lambrechts, Anne Willems and Guillaume Tahon have just published a paper 'Uncovering the Uncultivated Majority in Antarctic Soils: Toward a Synergistic Approach' in Frontiers in Microbiology!
Link to Lambrechts et al. 2019

Indeed, the majority of bacteria is still uncultivated and known only from surveys based on sequence data, either a taxonomic molecular marker like the 16S rRNA gene or a metagenomic analysis where all the present genes are targeted (without preselection by PCR).

The paper is showing that cultivated strains are still crucial to study and understand microbial diversity and gives useful suggestions.

Cheers

A great sampling week!

It really was a great sampling week! Since Wednesday 30th of January, Valentina and Quinten are the only MICROBIAN scientists here at the Princess Elisabeth station, as Elie went back to Belgium.

Thanks to the very good weather conditions of these last days - even though we touched temperatures below -20C - we were able to sample in 6 different sites in 6 days (see map in Fig.1), 3 of them new to the MICROBIAN team.

Fig. 1. Map of the sampling sites

We also revisited the snow fences and many OTCs previously installed and 3 new OTCs were installed (Fig.2).

Fig.2. Newly installed OTCs in the northern nunatak of Perlebandet

One of the most diverse nunataks visited until now was Pingvinane South. The microbial communities were very developed and many cyanobacteria were visible, especially under the thin layer of granite gravel. Cyanobacteria are extraordinary photosynthetic bacteria: Some of them have sunscreen pigments that enable them to cope with the strong UV radiation in Antarctica! Measuring the photosynthetic activity of these organisms in such extreme temperatures is challenging due to the long waiting times required for these measurements.

Fig.3. Cyanobacterial colony in Gigi's lake in Yûboku Valley.

We were able to find liquid water under a thin ice layer in 4 different places, 2 of the lakes in Yûboku Valley (Fig.3), in a puddle of the southern nunatak of Pingvinane and in the windscoop of Petrelnuten. Liquid water is very important for these tiny life forms. While it is true that they can deal with very long periods of drought, they need liquid water for their metabolism.

More news about our last samplings will come in the following days.

 Take care, Valentina, Elie and Quinten!