Going to Antarctica to study the impact of climate change on marine invertebrates
The Antarctic polar ecosystems, which represent one of the unexplored frontiers in the planet, are once more the scenario of the new research campaign of the team coordinated by Professor Conxita Àvila, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and The Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio).
The Antarctic polar ecosystems, which represent one of the unexplored frontiers in the planet, are once more the scenario of the new research campaign of the team coordinated by Professor Conxita Àvila, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and The Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio).
From January 15 to March 20, 2017, with the austral summer weather, the experts will study the communities of invertebrates that are part of the marine benthos in the project Distantcom, which analyzes chemical ecology, phylogeny, taxonomy, philogeography and trophic ecology of these organisms in the Antarctic continent. The scientific team, which this year reaches its ninth campaign in Antarctic latitudes, counts with the collaboration of experts of the Faculty of Biology and Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the University of Barcelona, and the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC).
From research on marine benthos to future medication
From the Antarctic base Gabriel de Castilla, placed at Deception Island, in the South Shetland Islands, the research team will spread their research lines set on previous campaigns to open new scientific perspectives on benthic ecosystems -still unknown- of the Antarctic regions.
The project Distantcom, which is the continuation of the projects Ecoquim and Actiquim, led by Professor Conxita Àvila (UB-IRBio), has driven the discovery of new species in the Antarctic extreme habitats (for instance, the nudibranch Doto carinova, the nemertean Antarctonemertes riesgoae, the bone-eating worm Osedax decepcionensis, the annelid Parougia diapason, etc.). In this Antarctic campaign, there will also be studies on chemical ecology of marine benthos, which assess the role of the natural products with marine origins in the Antarctic marine ecosystems and their pharmacological potential for the treatment of diseases. The research team has described -among these products- new molecules such as aplicianins, iludalanes, meridianins, etc.
Studying the impact of climate change in the Antarctica
Some marine ecosystems are especially vulnerable to the ocean acidification, caused by excessive emission of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is consumed by the marine waters and makes changes in water chemistry. Antarctic bryozoans, calcificating organisms that live in colonies and create mineralized skeletons, are especially vulnerable to the effects of the ocean acidification related to global change.
During the austral campaign, the experts of the University of Barcelona will widen their researches to study the impact of the climate change in the ecology of the benthos and understand the extreme global effects of ocean acidification in the planet.