A satellite-derived baseline of photosynthetic life across Antarctica
Walshaw, Charlotte V.; Gray, Andrew; Fretwell, Peter T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1988-5844; Convey, Peter
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8497-9903; Davey, Matthew P.; Johnson, Joanne S.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4537-4447; Colesie, Claudia.
2024
A satellite-derived baseline of photosynthetic life across Antarctica.
Nature Geoscience, 2024.
16, pp.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01492-4
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Text (Open Access)
© The Author(s) 2024. s41561-024-01492-4.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (5MB) | Preview |
Abstract/Summary
Terrestrial vegetation communities across Antarctica are characteristically sparse, presenting a challenge for mapping their occurrence using remote sensing at the continent scale. At present there is no continent-wide baseline record of Antarctic vegetation, and large-scale area estimates remain unquantified. With local vegetation distribution shifts now apparent and further predicted in response to environmental change across Antarctica, it is critical to establish a baseline to document these changes. Here we present a 10 m-resolution map of photosynthetic life in terrestrial and cryospheric habitats across the entire Antarctic continent, maritime archipelagos and islands south of 60° S. Using Sentinel-2 imagery (2017–2023) and spectral indices, we detected terrestrial green vegetation (vascular plants, bryophytes, green algae) and lichens across ice-free areas, and cryospheric green snow algae across coastal snowpacks. The detected vegetation occupies a total area of 44.2 km2, with over half contained in the South Shetland Islands, altogether contributing just 0.12% of the total ice-free area included in the analysis. Due to methodological constraints, dark-coloured lichens and cyanobacterial mats were excluded from the study. This vegetation map improves the geospatial data available for vegetation across Antarctica, and provides a tool for future conservation planning and large-scale biogeographic assessments.
Item Type: | Publication - Article |
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Digital Object Identifier (DOI): | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01492-4 |
ISSN: | 1752-0894 |
Date made live: | 07 Aug 2024 08:36 +0 (UTC) |
URI: | https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/536526 |
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