LTER: Ecosystem Response to Amplified Landscape Connectivity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

Overlaid upon this physical system are biotic communities that are structured by the environment and by the movement of individual organisms within and between the glaciers, streams, lakes, and soils. The new work to be conducted at the McMurdo LTER site will explore how the layers of connectivity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys influence ecosystem structure and function. This project will test the hypothesis that increased ecological connectivity following enhanced melt conditions within the McMurdo Dry Valleys ecosystem will amplify exchange of biota, energy, and matter, homogenizing ecosystem structure and functioning.

This hypothesis will be tested with new and continuing experiments that examine: 1) how climate variation alters connectivity among landscape units, and 2) how biota are connected across a heterogeneous landscape using state-of-the-science tools and methods including automated sensor networks, analysis of seasonal satellite imagery, biogeochemical analyses, and next-generation sequencing. McMurdo LTER education programs and outreach activities will be continued, and expanded with new programs associated with the 200th anniversary of the first recorded sightings of Antarctica.

These activities will advance societal understanding of how polar ecosystems respond to change. McMurdo LTER will continue its mission of training and mentoring students, postdocs, and early career scientists as the next generation of leaders in polar ecosystem science, and lead the development of international environmental stewardship protocols for human activities in the region.