scholarly journals Standardizing microsatellite panels for individual identification of seabirds’ Snow Petrel Pagodroma nivea and Wilson’s Storm Petrel Oceanites oceanicus in Antarctica

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anant Pande ◽  
Nidhi Rawat ◽  
Kuppusamy Sivakumar ◽  
Sambandan Sathyakumar ◽  
Vinod B. Mathur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Research ◽  
Individual Identification ◽  
Seabird Species ◽  
Snow Petrel ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Past Population ◽  
Storm Petrel ◽  
Oceanites Oceanicus

ABSTRACTSeabirds are known to be important indicators of marine ecosystems health. Procellariiformes are one of the most abundant seabird species distributed from warm tropical to cold temperate regions including Antarctica. With few long-term studies on breeding seabirds at the Antarctic continent, crucial biological parameters such as genetic variation, population genetic structure and past population demography is lacking for most of the commonly occurring species. Under the ‘Biology and Environmental Sciences’ component of the Indian Antarctic programme, long-term monitoring of Antarctic biodiversity is being conducted. In this paper, we describe a panel of 12 and 10 cross-species microsatellite markers for two relatively less studied seabird species in Antarctica, snow petrel Pagodroma nivea and Wilson’s storm petrel Oceanites oceanicus, respectively. These loci showed high amplification success and moderate level of polymorphism in snow petrel (mean no. of alleles 7.08±3.01 and mean observed heterozygosity 0.35±0.23), but low polymorphism in Wilson’s storm petrel (mean no. of alleles 3.9±1.3 and mean observed heterozygosity 0.28±0.18). The results demonstrate that these panels can unambiguously identify individuals of both species from various types of biological materials. This work forms a baseline for undertaking long-term genetic research of Antarctic seabird species and provides critical insights into their population genetics.

scholarly journals Cross-species screening of microsatellite markers for individual identification of snow petrel Pagodroma nivea and Wilson's storm petrel Oceanites oceanicus in Antarctica

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anant Pande ◽  
Nidhi Rawat ◽  
Kuppusamy Sivakumar ◽  
Sambandam Sathyakumar ◽  
Vinod B. Mathur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microsatellite Markers ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Species Group ◽  
Individual Identification ◽  
Seabird Species ◽  
Snow Petrel ◽  
Storm Petrel ◽  
Oceanites Oceanicus

Seabirds are important indicators of marine ecosystem health. Species within the order Procellariiformes are the most abundant seabird species group distributed from warm tropical to cold temperate regions including Antarctica. There is a paucity of information on basic biology of the pelagic seabird species nesting on the Antarctic continents, and long-term studies are required to gather data on their population demography, genetics and other ecological parameters. Under the ‘Biology and Environmental Sciences’ component of the Indian Antarctic programme, long-term monitoring of Antarctic biodiversity is being conducted. In this paper, we describe results of cross-species screening of a panel of 12 and 10 microsatellite markers in two relatively little studied seabird species in Antarctica, the snow petrel Pagodroma nivea and the Wilson's storm petrel Oceanites oceanicus, respectively. These loci showed high amplification success and moderate levels of polymorphism in snow petrel (mean no. of alleles 7.08 ± 3.01 and mean observed heterozygosity 0.35 ± 0.23), but low polymorphism in Wilson's storm petrel (mean no. of alleles 3.9 ± 1.3 and mean observed heterozygosity 0.28 ± 0.18). The results demonstrate that these panels can unambiguously identify individuals of both species (cumulative PIDsibs for snow petrel is 3.7 × 10−03 and Wilson's storm petrel is 1.9 × 10−02) from field-collected samples. This work forms a baseline for undertaking long-term genetic research of these Antarctic seabird species and provides critical insights into their population genetics.

scholarly journals On the Long-Term Climate Memory in the Surface Air Temperature Records over Antarctica: A Nonnegligible Factor for Trend Evaluation

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (15) ◽  
pp. 5922-5934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naiming Yuan ◽  
Minghu Ding ◽  
Yan Huang ◽  
Zuntao Fu ◽  
Elena Xoplaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Noise ◽  
Surface Air Temperature ◽  
Fluctuation Analysis ◽  
The West ◽  
Weather System ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Temperature Records ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract In this study, observed temperature records of 12 stations from Antarctica island, coastline, and continental areas are analyzed by means of detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). After Monte Carlo significance tests, different long-term climate memory (LTM) behaviors are found: temperatures from coastal and island stations are characterized by significant long-term climate memory whereas temperatures over the Antarctic continent behave more like white noise, except for the Byrd station, which is located in the West Antarctica. It is argued that the emergence of LTM may be dominated by the interactions between local weather system and external slow-varying systems (ocean), and therefore the different LTM behaviors between temperatures over the Byrd station and that over other continental stations can be considered as a reflection of the different climatic environments between West and East Antarctica. By calculating the trend significance with the effect of LTM taken into account, and further comparing the results with those obtained from assumptions of autoregressive (AR) process and white noise, it is found that 1) most of the Antarctic stations do not show any significant trends over the past several decades, and 2) more rigorous trend evaluation can be obtained if the effect of LTM is considered. Therefore, it is emphasized that for air temperatures over Antarctica, especially for the Antarctica coastline, island, and the west continental areas, LTM is nonnegligible for trend evaluation.

scholarly journals Antarctic climate variability at regional and continental scales over the last 2,000 years

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Stenni ◽  
Mark A. J. Curran ◽  
Nerilie J. Abram ◽  
Anais Orsi ◽  
Sentia Goursaud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Group ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Temperature Reconstructions ◽  
Temperature Scaling ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Cooling Trend ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract. Climate trends in the Antarctic region remain poorly characterised, owing to the brevity and scarcity of direct climate observations and the large magnitude of interannual to decadal-scale climate variability. Here, within the framework of the PAGES Antarctica 2k working group, we build an enlarged database of ice core water stable isotope records from Antarctica, consisting of 112 records. We produce both unweighted and weighted isotopic (δ18O) composites and temperature reconstructions since 0 CE, binned at 5 and 10-year resolution, for 7 climatically-distinct regions covering the Antarctic continent. Following earlier work of the Antarctica 2k working group, we also produce composites and reconstructions for the broader regions of East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the whole continent. We use three methods for our temperature reconstructions: i) a temperature scaling based on the δ18O-temperature relationship output from an ECHAM5-wiso model simulation nudged to ERA-interim atmospheric reanalyses from 1979 to 2013, and adjusted for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet region to borehole temperature data; ii) a temperature scaling of the isotopic normalized anomalies to the variance of the regional reanalysis temperature and iii) a composite-plus-scaling approach used in a previous continental scale reconstruction of Antarctic temperature since 1 CE but applied to the new Antarctic ice core database. Our new reconstructions confirm a significant cooling trend from 0 to 1900 CE across all Antarctic regions where records extend back into the 1st millennium, with the exception of the Wilkes Land coast and Weddell Sea coast regions. Within this long-term cooling trend from 0–1900 CE we find that the warmest period occurs between 300 and 1000 CE, and the coldest interval from 1200 to 1900 CE. Since 1900 CE, significant warming trends are identified for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Dronning Maud Land coast and the Antarctic Peninsula regions, and these trends are robust across the distribution of records that contribute to the unweighted isotopic composites and also significant in the weighted temperature reconstructions. Only for the Antarctic Peninsula is this most recent century-scale trend unusual in the context of natural variability over the last 2000-years. However, projected warming of the Antarctic continent during the 21st Century may soon see significant and unusual warming develop across other parts of the Antarctic continent. The extended Antarctica 2k ice core isotope database developed by this working group opens up many avenues for developing a deeper understanding of the response of Antarctic climate to natural and anthropogenic climate forcings. The first long-term quantification of regional climate in Antarctica presented herein is a basis for data-model comparison and assessments of past, present and future driving factors of Antarctic climate.

scholarly journals A Voyage Towards the South Pole

1973 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-377
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
Palmer Station ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Term Objective ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Lewis A

Dr. David Lewis, a Fellow of this Institute and occasional contributor to the Journal, arrived at Palmer Station in the Antarctic, under jury rig, on 29 January having left Sydney on 20 October 1972 and stopped twenty-four hours at Stewart Island, N.Z., on the way. His long-term objective is to circumnavigate the Antarctic Continent, single-handed. He was twice capsized, in the course of which his gloves disappeared which resulted in badly frost-bitten fingers. After two months day and night in insulated boots, the warmth in the U.S. base when he arrived made his feet balloon and crack.

scholarly journals A New Monthly Pressure Dataset Poleward of 60°S since 1957

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (10) ◽  
pp. 3865-3874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan L. Fogt ◽  
Logan N. Clark ◽  
Julien P. Nicolas
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Marked Improvement ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Kriging Interpolation ◽  
West Antarctica ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Circulation Changes

This study presents a new monthly pressure dataset poleward of 60°S, from 1957 to 2016, based on a kriging interpolation from observed pressure anomalies across the Antarctic continent. Overall, the reconstruction performs well when evaluated against ERA-Interim. In comparison to other reanalyses, the reconstruction has interannual variability after 1970 similar to products that span the entire twentieth century and is a marked improvement on the first-generation reanalysis products. The reconstruction also produces weaker pressure trends than the reanalysis products evaluated here, which are consistent with observations. However, the skill of the reconstruction is weaker in the South Pacific and therefore does not improve the understanding of long-term pressure variability and trends in this region, where circulation changes have been key drivers of climate variability in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula.

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