Check out SENSE student Charlotte Walshaw’s paper ‘A satellite-derived baseline of photosynthetic life across Antarctica’ was published in Nature Geoscience today.
Charlotte has produced the first continent-wide mapping study of plant life across Antarctica. The satellite survey will be the baseline for monitoring vegetation in Antarcticas’ response to climate change. The mapping of previously uncharted regions will inform future conservation efforts.
Charlotte measuring the location of moss on Robert Island, maritime Antarctica (photo: René Quinan/INACH).
Charlotte Walshaw, PhD researcher from the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: “Our continent-scale map provides key information on vegetation presence in areas that are rarely visited by people. This will have profound implications for our understanding of where vegetation is located across the continent, and what factors influence this distribution.”
Vegetation in Antarctica is dominated by lichen and mosses. Image from Livingston Island, maritime Antarctica (photo: Felix Grewe).
The research, published in Nature Geoscience, was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and UK Space Agency. Field campaigns were supported by the British Antarctic Survey, Instituto Antarctic Chileno and Antarctica New Zealand.
Find out more about Charlotte