The Antarctic Regions

15 Polar regions ( Arctic and Antarctic )

Evolution and function of the globin intergenic regulatory regions of the antarctic dragonfishes (Notothenioidei: Bathydraconidae).

As the Southern Ocean cooled to -1.8 °C over the past 40 My, the teleostean clade Notothenioidei diversified and, under reduced selection pressure for an oxygen-transporting apparatus, became less reliant on hemoglobin and red blood cells. At the extreme of this trend, the crown group of Antarctic icefishes (Channichthyidae) lost both components of oxygen transport. Under the decreased selectio...

Invited review: climate change impacts in polar regions: lessons from Antarctic moss bank archives.

Mosses are the dominant plants in polar and boreal regions, areas which are experiencing rapid impacts of regional warming. Long-term monitoring programmes provide some records of the rate of recent climate change, but moss peat banks contain an unrivalled temporal record of past climate change on terrestrial plant Antarctic systems. We summarise the current understanding of climatic proxies an...

The Status and Trends of Antarctic and Sub - Antarctic Seabirds

The Antarctic Ecosystem

The Antarctic region comprises the continent and surrounding sea south of the Antarctic Convergence, where cold Antarctic upper water sinks and mixes with warmer sub-Antarctic water. The continent, nearly centered on the South Geographic Pole, is isolated by the Southern Ocean from other land masses. The continent's mean elevation is about 2,000 m and 98% of the surface is mantled by 2,000 m or...