There are no plants, birds or mammals in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, which are located in the largest region of the Antarctic continent. Photo: Ashley Shaw
In a study spanning two decades, a team of researchers led by Colorado State University found declining numbers of soil fauna, nematodes and other animal species in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the world’s driest and coldest deserts. This discovery is attributed to climate change, which has triggered melting and thawing of ice in this desert since an uncharacteristically warm weather event in 2001.
There are no plants, birds or mammals in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, located in the largest region of the Antarctic continent. But microbes and microscopic soil invertebrates live in the harsh ecosystem, where the mean average temperature is below -15 degrees Celsius, or 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The findings offer insight and an alarm bell on how ecosystems respond to climate change and to unusual climate events, scientists said.
“Until 2001, the region was not experiencing a warming trend,” said Walter Andriuzzi, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology and School of Global Environmental Sustainability.
“On the contrary, it was getting colder,” he continued. “But in 2001, the cooling trend stopped abruptly with an extremely warm weather event. Since then, the average temperatures are either stable or are increasing slightly. But most importantly, there have been more frequent intense weather events.”
The research team sampled soil invertebrates and measured soil properties, including water content, in three hydrological basins and at three different elevations in the region. In Taylor Valley, the field study was launched in 1993; in Miers and Garwood valleys, scientists started their work in 2011.