Antarctica: More than meets the eye
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Tiny life, global lessons.
CU researchers are studying a rare place in Antarctica that supports life—barely. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are almost too dry and too cold for anything to survive. Only tiny organisms and simple ecosystems can get by. Life is so basic that it’s easy to see the results of changing conditions.
In this stark place, scientists may get a clear view into the planet’s future. A warming climate will make it wetter here, so researchers are testing how living things will react to more water. What they learn here could provide clues about climate change in places that are more complex and harder to study.
For millions of years, Antarctica’s tiny lifeforms have claimed isolated pockets for their homes. Watery holes in a glacier. Patches of soil. Rocks on a streambed.
Each separate niche holds a different mix of species. All survive on water trickling off the nearby glaciers. As the climate warms, more meltwater will pour off the glaciers, sweeping through these pockets of life. Scientists believe the organisms—and the stuff that nurtures them—would spread out over the landscape. Variations between the many, specialized ecosystems would disappear. The planet might lose some species that live only in Antarctica.
At the edges of the Dry Valleys, glaciers release water into the landscape when they melt a little each summer. They also harbor miniscule communities in water-filled holes, like buried terrariums.
In summer, water seeps into the ground, especially around streambeds. That’s enough to support microscopic, worm-like animals called nematodes.
Water moves through these channels for only one or two months each year, on average. Even during that time, the flow isn’t constant. Living things on rocks and streambeds have adapted to survive the dry spells.
Permanently covered in ice, lakes are the only places on the continent where water stays liquid throughout the year. They harbor more kinds of life than anywhere else. In summer, inhabitants from other places float down streams into the lakes.
The few. The proud. The researchers.
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Environmental historian with research interests in the polar regions, national parks, and protected areas.
Graduate student in geology with research interests in lorum ipsum, et dolores.
Biologist with research interests in soil ecosystem, climate change, and evolutionary ecology.
Environmental, architectural, and civil engineer studying biogeochemistry of lakes and streams.
Engineer researching stream-groundwater interactions and polar earth system responses to climate change.
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