Past records and current distribution of seabirds at Larsemann Hills and Schirmacher Oasis, east Antarctica

Polar Record ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anant Pande ◽  
Samrat Mondol ◽  
Sambandam Sathyakumar ◽  
Vinod B. Mathur ◽  
Yogesh Ray ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
East Antarctica ◽  
Ecological Data ◽  
Seabird Species ◽  
South Polar Skua ◽  
Larsemann Hills ◽  
Snow Petrel ◽  
Schirmacher Oasis ◽  
Storm Petrel ◽  
South Polar

Abstract Seabird populations in Antarctica serve as indicators to assess the impacts of global environmental change. Ecological data on seabirds in Antarctica are scarce due to limited knowledge on their distribution and abundance in most parts of the continent. In this study, we investigated the status of seabird species around the Indian research stations Bharati at Larsemann Hills, Prydz bay and Maitri at Schirmacher Oasis, central Dronning Maud Land located in east Antarctica. We conducted primary surveys during austral summers under the Indian Antarctic Program and compiled published as well as unpublished information on seabird distribution from these areas. We employed intensive area search methods to locate presence of seabird nesting and moulting sites. Ten species were recorded from Larsemann Hills with confirmed breeding of snow petrel, south polar skua and Wilson’s storm-petrel. Only south polar skua and Adélie penguin were reported breeding at Schirmacher Oasis with unconfirmed breeding of Wilson’s storm-petrel. This study presents the first detailed synthesis of status of seabirds from Larsemann Hills and Schirmacher Oasis regions in Antarctica and serves as a strong baseline for future ecological work on seabirds in the sector of operation of Indian Antarctic Program.

Human influences on breeding of south polar skuas in the eastern Larsemann Hills, Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica

Polar Record ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (180) ◽  
pp. 43-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Wang ◽  
F.I. Norman ◽  
J.S. Burgess ◽  
S.J. Ward ◽  
A.P. Spate ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Success ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Annual Variation ◽  
East Antarctica ◽  
Larsemann Hills ◽  
Catharacta Maccormicki ◽  
Area Development ◽  
South Polar ◽  
Made In ◽  
Area Data

AbstractBreeding activity of pairs of south polar skuas (Catharacta maccormicki) in the eastern Larsemann Hills, Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica, was recorded in five of six austral summers between 1988 and 1994. More detailed observations of breeding success were made in the 1989/90 and 1993/94 summers. Although relatively few skuas nest in the study area, data suggest that there was inter-annual variation in numbers and locations of territories and chicks fledged. This variation is discussed in relation to increased human activities in the area (development of a summer base and more permanent stations) and to an enhanced access to human-derived foods. It is concluded that there has been some human impact on this species in the Larsemann Hills.

scholarly journals Semiautomated Detection and Mapping of Vegetation Distribution in the Antarctic Environment Using Spatial-Spectral Characteristics of WorldView-2 Imagery

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 1909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shridhar D. Jawak ◽  
Alvarinho J. Luis ◽  
Peter T. Fretwell ◽  
Peter Convey ◽  
Udhayaraj A. Durairajan
Keyword(s):  
Feature Extraction ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
East Antarctica ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Matched Filtering ◽  
Vegetation Distribution ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Larsemann Hills ◽  
Validation Experiment ◽  
Schirmacher Oasis

Effective monitoring of changes in the geographic distribution of cryospheric vegetation requires high-resolution and accurate baseline maps. The rationale of the present study is to compare multiple feature extraction approaches to remotely mapping vegetation in Antarctica, assessing which give the greatest accuracy and reproducibility relative to those currently available. This study provides precise, high-resolution, and refined baseline information on vegetation distribution as is required to enable future spatiotemporal change analyses of the vegetation in Antarctica. We designed and implemented a semiautomated customized normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) approach for extracting cryospheric vegetation by incorporating very high resolution (VHR) 8-band WorldView-2 (WV-2) satellite data. The viability of state-of-the-art target detection, spectral processing/matching, and pixel-wise supervised classification feature extraction techniques are compared with the customized NDVI approach devised in this study. An extensive quantitative and comparative assessment was made by evaluating four semiautomatic feature extraction approaches consisting of 16 feature extraction standalone methods (four customized NDVI plus 12 existing methods) for mapping vegetation on Fisher Island and Stornes Peninsula in the Larsemann Hills, situated on continental east Antarctica. The results indicated that the customized NDVI approach achieved superior performance (average bias error ranged from ~6.44 ± 1.34% to ~11.55 ± 1.34%) and highest statistical stability in terms of performance when compared with existing feature extraction approaches. Overall, the accuracy analysis of the vegetation mapping relative to manually digitized reference data (supplemented by validation with ground truthing) indicated that the 16 semi-automatic mapping methods representing four general feature extraction approaches extracted vegetated area from Fisher Island and Stornes Peninsula totalling between 2.38 and 3.72 km2 (2.85 ± 0.10 km2 on average) with bias values ranging from 3.49 to 31.39% (average 12.81 ± 1.88%) and average root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.41 km2 (14.73 ± 1.88%). Further, the robustness of the analyses and results were endorsed by a cross-validation experiment conducted to map vegetation from the Schirmacher Oasis, East Antarctica. Based on the robust comparative analysis of these 16 methods, vegetation maps of the Larsemann Hills and Schirmacher Oasis were derived by ensemble merging of the five top-performing methods (Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering, Matched Filtering, Matched Filtering/Spectral Angle Mapper Ratio, NDVI-2, and NDVI-4). This study is the first of its kind to detect and map sparse and isolated vegetated patches (with smallest area of 0.25 m2) in East Antarctica using VHR data and to use ensemble merging of feature extraction methods, and provides access to an important indicator for environmental change.

Lichen synusiae in East Antarctica (Schirmacher Oasis and Larsemann Hills): substratum and morphological preferences

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Himanshu Rai ◽  
Roshni Khare ◽  
Sanjeeva Nayaka ◽  
Dalip Kumar Upreti ◽  
Rajan K. Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Growth Form ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Growth Conditions ◽  
East Antarctica ◽  
Plant Distribution ◽  
Larsemann Hills ◽  
Schirmacher Oasis ◽  
Study Sites

Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems experience some of the most extreme growth conditions, where plant distribution is determined by favourable environmental gradients of temperature and moisture along with micro-topography of habitats. Lichens are among the most tolerant symbiotic organisms which constitute dominant component in the terrestrial biota of Antarctica. There are various studies dealing with patterns of lichen diversity of various regions of Antarctica are done but in east Antarctica such studies are scanty. Lichen synusiae of Schirmacher Oasis and McLeod Island, Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica were studied in order to determine their morphological and substratum affinities. The Lichen synusiae of the study sites was represented by 71 species, 24 genera and 13 families in Schirmacher Oasis and 27 species, 18 genera and 10 families in McLeod Island, Larsemann Hills. Hierarchical cluster analysis of lichen communities on the basis of growth form diversity and substratum occurrence showed that crustose growth form and saxicolous (on rock, stones and moraines) habitat were the most preferred, in both study sites. The study presents a representative account of morphological and substratum preference patterns in lichen synusiae of east Antarctica, which can be of fundamental importance for future lichenological investigation in the region.

scholarly journals Cross-species screening of microsatellite markers for individual identification of snow petrel Pagodroma nivea and Wilson's storm petrel Oceanites oceanicus in Antarctica

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anant Pande ◽  
Nidhi Rawat ◽  
Kuppusamy Sivakumar ◽  
Sambandam Sathyakumar ◽  
Vinod B. Mathur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microsatellite Markers ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Species Group ◽  
Individual Identification ◽  
Seabird Species ◽  
Snow Petrel ◽  
Storm Petrel ◽  
Oceanites Oceanicus

Seabirds are important indicators of marine ecosystem health. Species within the order Procellariiformes are the most abundant seabird species group distributed from warm tropical to cold temperate regions including Antarctica. There is a paucity of information on basic biology of the pelagic seabird species nesting on the Antarctic continents, and long-term studies are required to gather data on their population demography, genetics and other ecological parameters. Under the ‘Biology and Environmental Sciences’ component of the Indian Antarctic programme, long-term monitoring of Antarctic biodiversity is being conducted. In this paper, we describe results of cross-species screening of a panel of 12 and 10 microsatellite markers in two relatively little studied seabird species in Antarctica, the snow petrel Pagodroma nivea and the Wilson's storm petrel Oceanites oceanicus, respectively. These loci showed high amplification success and moderate levels of polymorphism in snow petrel (mean no. of alleles 7.08 ± 3.01 and mean observed heterozygosity 0.35 ± 0.23), but low polymorphism in Wilson's storm petrel (mean no. of alleles 3.9 ± 1.3 and mean observed heterozygosity 0.28 ± 0.18). The results demonstrate that these panels can unambiguously identify individuals of both species (cumulative PIDsibs for snow petrel is 3.7 × 10−03 and Wilson's storm petrel is 1.9 × 10−02) from field-collected samples. This work forms a baseline for undertaking long-term genetic research of these Antarctic seabird species and provides critical insights into their population genetics.

scholarly journals Hydrological and biological regimes of lakes of East Antarctica

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei N. Sharov ◽  
Alekxei V. Tolstikov
Keyword(s):  
Water Temperature ◽  
Wind Wave ◽  
Benthic Communities ◽  
Maximum Density ◽  
East Antarctica ◽  
Small Lakes ◽  
Larsemann Hills ◽  
Schirmacher Oasis ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Biological Component

Hydrological and biological regimes of different types of lakes of oases of East Antarctica, Thala Hills, Schirmacher Oasis and Larsemann Hills, were studied in the summer of 2010–2011. In lakes covered with ice, inverse temperature stratification is recorded. In the bottom layers of the water, the temperature (about 4 °C) is close to the values characteristic of water with a maximum density. Isothermy is observed on the opened small lakes, and water in some reservoirs warms up to 8 °С. Benthic communities of cyanobacteria and invertebrates are the main biological component of lakes, where there is no classical food chain and a microbial loop prevails. Studies have shown that a 3-meter layer of ice permits a sufficient amount of light even to a depth of 30 m. Light does not limit the development of algae and cyanobacteria. However, the low content of nutrients in the water limits the growth of phytoplankton, causing low values of biomass (less than 0.01 mg/l) and concentration of chlorophyll a (0.1–0.45 μg/l). A tendency to climate change around the Schirmacher oasis is recorded. In recent decades, some lakes, which in the middle of the last century were constantly covered with ice, began to open in the summer months. In the period when the lake is covered with ice, homothermy is established with a water temperature of 4 °C. After having opened, the water temperature in the lake drops to 0.5–1 °С because of wind-wave cooling.

Sedimentary processes in two different polar periglacial environments: Examples from Schirmacher Oasis and Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica

2013 ◽  
Vol 381 (1) ◽  
pp. 411-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh Asthana ◽  
Prakash K. Shrivastava ◽  
M. Javed Beg ◽  
Ashit K. Swain ◽  
Amit Dharwadkar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Antarctica ◽  
Sedimentary Processes ◽  
Larsemann Hills ◽  
Schirmacher Oasis
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