The importance of local settings: within-year variability in seawater temperature at south bay, western antarctic peninsula
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Date
2018-01-18
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Peerj Inc
Abstract
The Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) has undergone significant changes in air and
seawater temperatures during the last 50 years. Although highly stenotherm Antarctic
organisms are expected to be severely affected by the increase of seawater temperature,
high-resolution datasets of seawater temperature within coastal areas of the WAP
(where diverse marine communities have been reported) are not commonly available.
Here we report on within-year (2016 2017) variation in seawater temperature at three
sites on Doumer Island, Palmer Archipelago, WAP. Within a year, Antarctic organisms
in South Bay were exposed to water temperatures in excess of 2 C for more than 25
days and 2.5 C for more than 10 days. We recorded a temperature range between����1.7
to 3.0 C. Warming of seawater temperature was 3.75 times faster after October 2016
than it was before October. Results from this study indicate that organisms at South
Bay are already exposed to temperatures that are being used in experimental studies
to evaluate physiological responses to thermal stress in WAP organisms. Continuous
measurements of short to long-term variability in seawater temperature provides
important information for parametrizing meaningful experimental treatments that
aim to assess the local effects of environmental variation on Antarctic organisms under
future climate scenarios.
Description
Keywords
Ciencia, Climate change, Benthic organisms, Increased seawater temperature, Environmental variability, Stenothermic, Short-term variability, Environmental change, Temporal variation, Thermal tolerance
Citation
PeerJ 6:e4289