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The warming of the Antarctic Peninsula could see the number of types of soil fungi in the Antarctic region increase dramatically by up to 25 per cent by the end of the century, according to research carried out by a team of British and Australian scientists.

The increase in the number of fungal species could have a large effect on the availability of nutrients and on plant growth and diversity, positively influencing important ecological processes such as the decomposition of plant remains.

The University of Western Australia’s Dean of the Faculty of Science Professor Tony O'Donnell, who co-authored the paper, said the study found that the rate at which fungal diversity develops in Antarctic soils is not only influenced by rising air temperatures, but also by precipitation, which is also likely to increase as the region warms.

“Air temperatures in Antarctica have risen by up to 2.8 °C over the past 50 years, the fastest rate in the Southern Hemisphere,” he said.  “This has caused glacier retreat and ice shelf collapse.”

“Environmental change is altering the biology of these fragile systems to a point that plant growth, residue decomposition and losses of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are increasing.”

The research used next generation sequencing of DNA to measure the number of species of fungi present in 29 soil samples gathered from a 1,650 km-long area of the Antarctic Peninsula during the austral summer of 2007/08. Some of the sites, sampled by helicopter or small boats from HMS Endurance, were previously uncharted.

Professor David Hopkins, who led the survey work and who is now based at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, said the research was the largest-scale survey of soil organisms undertaken in the Antarctic Peninsula.

“The ‘space for time’ survey where soils are sampled along a natural climatic gradient, allowed us to compare sites at different latitudes and to use this to predict the effect of increasing warmer and wetter conditions,” he said.

“Although the majority of fungi analysed are microscopic, they have very important roles to play as decomposers and as symbionts.”

Professor O’Donnell said the ‘space for time’ approach could also be used to study the impact of a drying climate on soil diversity in Australia.

“The application of next generation sequencing has enabled us to generate inventories of fungi in soils that until now were poorly understood and characterised due to their remoteness,” he said.

The research was funded by The University of Queensland and the Natural Environment Research Council and was published in the journal Nature Climate Change .

Media references

Professor Tony O’Donnell (Dean, UWA Faculty of Science)                                                        (+61 8) 6488 8703
Jess Reid (UWA Media and Public Relations Officer)                                                                (+61 8) 6488 6876