They arrived at Deception Island last Friday in the second part of the Radiant project. Experiments have already begun to study the effect of solar radiation and temperature on macroalgae
On board the Bulgarian polar vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii RSV, researchers Mariano Lastra, Jesús Souza Troncoso, and Jesús López, members of the Marine Research Centre of the University of Vigo (CIM-UVigo), arrived last weekend at the Gabriel de Castilla Base on Deception Island. Alongside them, the scientist Iván Franco from the University of Cádiz will work over the next month on the Radiant project as part of the XXXVII Antarctic Campaign of the Spanish Army. The more than 14,000 km journey to the frozen continent began on Sunday, May 7, with a flight from Vigo to Madrid, followed by a 13-hour flight to Santiago de Chile. After a few hours of waiting, they boarded a third flight to Punta Arenas. There, after COVID-19 testing, they boarded a plane chartered by the South Korean Polar Committee (KOPRI) to the Chilean base Frei on King George Island, where the Bulgarian vessel awaited them. The ship then transported the Spanish scientists to Gabriel de Castilla Base, which they reached late on Friday, May 12.
They now have a month of work ahead of them in one of the best natural laboratories in the world as part of the Radiant project, which aims to evaluate the effect of solar radiation and temperature on the degradation of macroalgal biomass in sedimentary intertidal areas in Porto Foster, on Deception Island. As explained by Mariano Lastra, professor at the Department of Ecology and Animal Biology and researcher at CIM-UVigo, this is the second and final campaign of the project, which has a total duration of three years, since the last year will be dedicated to processing the samples and analyzing the results. In the next four weeks, in addition to continuing with the sampling on the beaches that began last year, they will also carry out two experiments to determine the effect of increased radiation and temperature.
Evaluate the effect of solar radiation and temperature on macroalgae
The Radiant project is one of 30 that were selected to be part of the XXXVII Antarctic Campaign coordinated by the Army that got underway on January 1 with the arrival of the first teams at the Gabriel de Castilla base. The Vigo research focuses on deposits of macroalgae from the rocky substrate deposited on the coastline by currents and tides, which function as generators of numerous ecological processes associated with their decomposition, including consumption, habitat supply and biogeochemical activity of the sediment. The objective is to quantify these processes on ten beaches along the coast of Porto Foster and evaluate their effect on the release of nutrients and the emission of CO2 through the sediment, as an estimator of the metabolic activity of the substrate.
During this new stay, they will replicate the samplings carried out last year, in the first campaign of the project, along the bay arc and will also carry out two other experiments, one manipulating the natural environment and another under mesocosm conditions in the laboratory. In the first, selective UVA/B radiation filters will be used to assess the hypothesis that the increase in incident UV radiation due to the ozone hole opening will cause alterations in the decomposition processes of the macroalgal biomass accumulated in the sedimentary intertidal zones of Porto Foster. The mesocosm experiment, in turn, will allow studying the effects of altered UVR on primary consumers. For this, the consumption rate of the herbivorous amphipod Gondogeneia antarctica (Chevreux, 1906) on fragments of two Antarctic macroalgae species, Palmaria decipiens and Desmarestia antárctica, which will have been previously irradiated with excess UVA and UVB, will be analyzed.
First days of work
After a few days of organizing and preparing the material, this Monday the CIM team began the process of searching for macroalgae along Fumarolas beach. Given the time of year, they initially found few specimens in good condition that could be used in the planned experiments, so sampling is ongoing during these first few days. At the same time, they also carried out tests on the lighting of the UV-A and UV-B lamps that will be used in the planned herbivory experiments and on Tuesday they also collaborated in the installation of a seismic base on the beacon located in southern Fumarolas together with several members of the Gabriel de Castilla Base. In the last few hours they installed the systems necessary to carry out the experiments on the Fumarolas beach.
The research activity of the CIM is supported by the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union through their co-financing under the Galicia ERDF Operational Programme 2014–2020.
Source: DUVI
