Biological soil crusts in continental Antarctica: Garwood Va

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TitleBiological soil crusts in continental Antarctica: Garwood Valley, southern Victoria Land, and Diamond Hill, Darwin Mountains regionAbstractBiological soil crusts are associations of lichens, mosses, algae, cyanobacteria, microfungi and bacteria in different proportions forming a thin veneer within the top centimetres of soil surfaces. They occur in all biomes, but particularly in arid and semi-arid regions, even in the most extreme climates. They carry out crucial ecosystem functions, such as soil stabilization, influencing water and nutrient cycles, and contribute to the formation of microniches for heterotrophic life. In continental Antarctica especially, these roles are essential because no higher plants provide such ecosystem services. We provide a detailed description of biological soil crusts from Garwood Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys region (78S) and Diamond Hill (80S) in the Darwin Mountains region. The coverage was low at 3.3 percent and 0.8 percent of the soil surface. At Garwood Valley the crusts were composed of green algal lichens, cyanobacteria, several species of green algae and the moss Hennediella heimii (Hedw.) R.H. Zander. Diamond Hill crusts appear to be unique in not having any species of cyanobacteria. Major parts are embedded in the soil, and their thickness correlates with higher chlorophyll contents, higher soil organic carbon and nitrogen, which are fundamental components of this species poor cold desert zone. Copyright â"' Antarctic Science Ltd 2013.AcknowledgementsCC and BB gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG SPP 1158, BU666/11-112). This research is part of the New Zealand Terrestrial Antarctic Biocomplexity Survey (NZTABS) and was supported by the New Zealand Foundation for Research Science and Technology (Grant UOWX0710, Understanding, valuing and protecting AntarcticaÅ› unique terrestrial ecosystems: predicting biocomplexity in Dry Valley ecosystems). This paper forms a contribution to the SCAR Programme Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA) and Antarctica New ZealandÅ› Latitudinal Gradient Project (LGP). Antarctica New Zealand is thanked for providing logistics both for the research in Antarctica and movements to Antarctica and their staff for assisting with removal of equipment. Special thanks to Craig Cary and his team (Biological Sciences, University of Waikato) for the organization and support during the Garwood Valley field trip (K020). We are indebted to Dr Rod Seppelt (Tasmanian Herbarium, Hobart, Australia) for determination of the moss species. Hans Reichenberger is thanked for field and lab assistance. Permits: sampling, entry into protected areas and equipment deployment were approved by the New Zealand authorities. We acknowledge the SCAR Antarctic Digital Database for making the download of the most recent Antarctic maps available online (http://www.add.scar.org/index.jsp). We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for helpful criticisms on earlier versions of the manuscript.Funding DetailsBU 666/11-112, DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; SPP 1158, DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

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1st AuthorColesie, C.AuthorColesie, C.Gommeaux, M.Green, T.Budel, B.Year2013JournalAntarctic ScienceVolume26Number2Pages115-123DOI10.1017/S0954102013000291URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....7ec55b964ef7f5eb338f1bd24Keywordsbiomechlorophyllecosystem functionecosystem servicesemiarid regionsoil crustsoil microorganismsoil organic mattersoil stabilizationsoil surface, AntarcticaDarwin GlacierEast AntarcticaGarwood ValleyMcMurdo Dry Valleys, algaeBryophytaChlorophytaCyanobacteriaEmbryophytaHennediella heimii, rank5Author Keywordsecosystem functioninglichensMcMurdo Dry Valleysmossessoil organic carbon contentssoil stabilization

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TypeArticleCitationColesie, C., Gommeaux, M., Green, T. and Budel, B. (2013). Biological soil crusts in continental Antarctica: Garwood Valley, southern Victoria Land, and Diamond Hill, Darwin Mountains region. Antarctic Science, 26(2): 115-123 IdentifierColesie2013Relevancerank5