Mr President, ladies and gentlemen: it is my pleasure, in opening this two-day conference on the terrestrial Antarctic ecosystem, to welcome you as contributors of papers and, as I shall hope, participants in the discussions with which we will conclude each of the four sessions of our meeting. This symposium was first suggested and has, in very large measure, been organized by Dr Martin Holdgate whom we regretfully, but nevertheless most warmly congratulate on his recent translation from the post of Senior Biologist of the British Antarctic Survey to that of Deputy Director of the Nature Conservancy. The furtherance of Antarctic biology in recent years owes much to Dr Holdgate’s energetic and imaginative direction, and I am glad to have this opportunity of acknowledging our indebtedness to him for arranging this discussion. The Antarctic continent, half as large again as Australia, and the surrounding Southern Ocean, in area about one-fifth of the world’s sea surface were, by their very remoteness from the maritime nations of the northern hemisphere, late of exploration. But, while it is little more than 75 years since man first set foot on the Antarctic continent, the more accessible waters of the Southern Ocean have an appreciably longer history of exploration, dating from the pioneering voyages of Captain Cook some 200 years ago. Biological investigations in Antarctica were, therefore, for long concerned almost entirely with observations and studies of animals living in the open ocean or on the sea floor rather than with the terrestrial and freshwater floras and faunas of the continental margin and oceanic islands which, either because of difficulties of access or limitations of time imposed by ships’ programmes, were rarely surveyed in detail.
Erratum to: Evolutionary history of Southern Ocean Odontaster sea star species (Odontasteridae; Asteroidea)