The permanently ice-covered lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, harbor microbially dominated food webs. These organisms are adapted to a variety of unusual environmental extremes, including low temperature, low light, and permanently stratified water columns with strong chemo- and oxy-clines. Owing to the low light levels during summer caused by thick ice cover as well as 6 months of ...

Abstract. The presence of subglacial lakes and hydrological networks under the East West Antarctic ice sheets is now relatively well understood, whilst their influence on dynamics subject ongoing research. In contrast, little known about Peninsula Ice Sheet how these are influencing glacier behaviour. Here we describe rapid drainage slow refill a lake Mars Glacier using remote sensing aerogeoph...

Organic Lake in Antarctica is a marine-derived, cold (?13?C), stratified (oxic-anoxic), hypersaline (>200 gl –1 ) system with unusual chemistry (very high levels of dimethylsulfide) that supports the growth phylogenetically and metabolically diverse microorganisms. Symbionts are not well characterized Antarctica. However, unicellular eukaryotes often present Antarctic lakes theoretically...

Affiliations School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia. School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia. School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia. Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia. Antarctic Conservation and Management, Au...

The area involved by the triple junction between South American, Nazca and Antarctic plates activity was affected Quaternary glaciations. Before 12,800 yrs BP an extended ice field occupied top of Patagonian Andes, irradiating glaciers towards east west dominantly. Towards east, melted in piedmont lakes; west, fjords into Pacific Ocean. Upper-Pleistocene climate amelioration caused recession th...

The Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHW) play a major role in the global climate system. winds drive ocean circulation and affect Oceans’ ability to take up atmospheric CO 2 . Recently, SHW core belt has strengthened shifted south, but there is an insufficient understanding of its long-term behaviour. Palaeoclimatic records are key for capturing variability through SHW’s effect on surface tempe...

Sponges play a key role in Antarctic marine benthic community structure and dynamics and are often a dominant component of many Southern Ocean benthic communities. Understanding the drivers of sponge distribution in Antarctica enables us to understand many of general benthic biodiversity patterns in the region. The sponges of the Antarctic and neighbouring oceanographic regions were assessed fo...

Quaternary glaciations in Antarctica drastically modified geographical ranges and population sizes of marine benthic invertebrates and thus affected the amount and distribution of intraspecific genetic variation. Here, we present new genetic information in the Antarctic limpet Nacella concinna, a dominant Antarctic benthic species along shallow ice-free rocky ecosystems. We examined the pattern...