Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF) is an international, interdisciplinary research program funded by the Australian government that seeks to understand in depth the impact of climate change on the ecosystems of the White Continent.
As part of this initiative, researchers are deployed to Antarctica each year to study in the field the environmental changes occurring in the polar region and in particular to analyze how mosses are adapting to the new conditions caused by climate change, especially those related to the increase in temperatures and UV-B radiation.
For this purpose, the Usach research team composed of Dr. Gustavo Zúñiga and biochemist Diego Salinas together with Australian researchers Dr. Sharon Robinson and Dr. Melinda Wateman are currently in Antarctica to analyze samples of mosses that grow in different environments in the region of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The field work, explains the researcher from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, will consist of measuring environmental variables such as air and soil temperature, relative humidity, UVB radiation, among other data, in addition to taking samples of mosses to carry out the different analyses mentioned. The sampling will be carried out at various locations in the region, including Deception Island, Robert and Nelson, and finally at the Professor Julio Escudero base of Inach, located on King George Island.
“The objective is to collect samples of mosses for molecular and biochemical analysis and to determine the relative age of each species of moss collected”, said Dr. Zúñiga about the initiative “Impact of climate change on Antarctic vegetation”, which has the logistical support of the Chilean Antarctic Institute.
“The results we obtain will allow us to determine the mechanisms that operate in the species that grow in that environment,” commented Dr. Gustavo Zúñiga regarding the project in which the University of Santiago de Chile is the only Latin American campus that is part of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Inach) and which brings together universities from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the United States, and Australia.
The data collected by the researchers during their stay in the region will allow them to advance in the knowledge of the mosses and the mechanisms by which they can survive in these extreme conditions, being relevant to the knowledge of one of the impacts of climate change in the region.