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Global climate change is significantly affecting marine life off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, but little is known about microbial ecology in this area. The main goal of this study was to investigate the bacterioplankton community structure in surface waters using pyrosequencing and to determine factors influencing this community. Pelagibacterales and Rhodobacterales (Alphaproteobacteria), Oceanospirillales and Alteromonadales (Gammaproteobacteria), and Flavobacteriales (Bacteroidetes) were the core taxa in our samples, and the five most relatively abundant genera were Pelagibacter, Polaribacter, Octadecabacter, group HTCC2207 and Sulfitobacter. Although nutrients and chlorophyll a (chl a) contributed more to bacterioplankton community structure than water masses or depth, only 30.39% of the variance could be explained by the investigated environmental factors, as revealed by RDA and pRDA. No significant difference with respect to nutrients and chl a was observed among water masses or depth, as indicated by ANOVA. Furthermore, significant correlations among the dominant bacterial genera were more common than correlations between dominant genera and environmental factors, as revealed by Spearman analysis. We conclude that nutrients and chl a become homogeneous and that interpopulation interactions may have a central role in influencing the bacterial community structure in surface waters off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula during the summer.

An urgent necessity to understand the effect of climatic change on scleractinian cold-water coral (CWC) ecosystems has arisen due to increasing ocean warming and acidification over the last decades. Here, presence-absence records of 12 scleractinian CWC species from research expeditions and the literature were compiled and merged with model-generated pseudo-absence data and 14 environmental variables. The best-fitting results of 9 species distribution models (SDMs) were combined to an ensemble habitat suitability model for CWCs in the northern Southern Ocean (Weddell Sea and Antarctic Peninsula) by means of the open-source R package "biomod2". Furthermore, 2 future scenarios of increasing bottom sea temperature were used to investigate the spatial response of scleractinians to temperature change. The resulting (current scenario) potential ecological niches were evaluated with good to excellent statistical measures. The results predict that present areas of highest probability of CWC occurrence are around the Antarctic Peninsula, South Orkney Islands and Queen Maud Land, with preference to geomorphic features such as seamounts. The distribution of CWC habitats is mainly driven by distance to coast and ice shelves, bathymetry, benthic calcium carbonate, and temperature. Under warming conditions, CWCs are predicted to expand their distribution range by 6 and 10% in 2037 and 2150, respectively, compared to the present distribution. The future models using increased bottom temperature revealed a stable CWC distribution for most parts of the study area. However, habitat shifts are expected to the Filchner Trough region, the adjacent continental shelves, as well as to the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. KEYWORDS: Scleractinian coral · Ensemble models · Environmental change · Habitat suitability model · Spatial distribution · Weddell Sea. Antarctica

Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) colonies are found on sub-Antarctic islands around the continent. These islands experience a range of conditions in terms of physical and biological habitat, creating a natural laboratory to investigate local genetic adaptation. One striking habitat difference is in the availability of Euphausia superba krill as prey, which has led to A. gazella exhibiting a range of diets. A. gazella in some colonies consume exclusively krill, while their conspecifics in other colonies feed mainly on fish and consume few to no krill. To investigate potential adaptations to these different prey fields, reduced representation genome sequencing was conducted on A. gazella from the 8 major colonies. Twenty-seven genomic regions exhibiting signatures of natural selection were identified. Two of these genomic regions were clearly associated with seals living in krill-dominated areas or those in fish-dominated areas. Twenty-two additional genomic regions under selection showed a pattern consistent with prey differences as the driver of selection after historical migrations from krill-dominated habitats where lineages evolved to present krill-poor habitat areas were taken into account. Only 1 of the genomic regions identified appeared to be explained by any other environmental variable analysed (depth). Genomic regions under prey-driven selection included genes associated with regulation of gene expression, skeletal development, and lipid metabolism. Adaptation to local prey has implications for spatial management of this species and for the potential impacts of climate- or harvest-driven reductions in krill abundance on these seals. KEY WORDS: Arctocephalus gazella · Double digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing · ddRAD · Diet · Euphausia superba · Natural selection

The intertidal fauna of the Antarctic Peninsula has a relatively high species diversity, due to its warmer environment compared to other parts of Antarctica. Marine oligochaetes are, in general, one of the most diverse and ecologically important benthic organism groups, at least in the littoral zone. Antarctica has been one of the least studied areas with regard to oligochaete diversity. Here we report two Lumbricillus species (Lumbricillus antarcticus Stephenson, 1932 and Lumbricillus sejongensis sp. nov.) new to Antarctica, found in a tidal pool on the Barton Peninsula, King George Island. The diversity of this genus remains poorly known for Antarctica and the Subantarctic islands, and what we know is based on a few patchy studies.

In the Southern Ocean, polynyas exhibit enhanced rates of primary productivity and represent large seasonal sinks for atmospheric CO2. Three contrasting east Antarctic polynyas were visited in late December to early January 2017: the Dalton, Mertz, and Ninnis polynyas. In the Mertz and Ninnis polynyas, phytoplankton biomass (average of 322 and 354 mg chlorophyll a (Chl a)/m2, respectively) and net community production (5.3 and 4.6 mol C/m2, respectively) were approximately 3 times those measured in the Dalton polynya (average of 122 mg Chl a/m2 and 1.8 mol C/m2). Phytoplankton communities also differed between the polynyas. Diatoms were thriving in the Mertz and Ninnis polynyas but not in the Dalton polynya, where Phaeocystis antarctica dominated. These strong regional differences were explored using physiological, biological, and physical parameters. The most likely drivers of the observed higher productivity in the Mertz and Ninnis were the relatively shallow inflow of iron-rich modified Circumpolar Deep Water onto the shelf as well as a very large sea ice meltwater contribution. The productivity contrast between the three polynyas could not be explained by (1) the input of glacial meltwater, (2) the presence of Ice Shelf Water, or (3) stratification of the mixed layer. Our results show that physical drivers regulate the productivity of polynyas, suggesting that the response of biological productivity and carbon export to future change will vary among polynyas.

Species are likely to segregate their ecological niches to minimize competition for resources, but for centrally foraging predators that breed on sub-Antarctic islands in the Southern Ocean the possibility of niche segregation may be minimal. This study is the first to examine the spatial and trophic aspects of the foraging niche of sympatrically breeding macaroni and chinstrap penguins at the poorly-studied sub-Antarctic island Bouvetøya over multiple years. To measure at-sea movements and dive behavior, 90 breeding macaroni Eudyptes chrysolophus and 49 breeding chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarcticus were deployed with satellite transmitters and time-depth recorders over two austral summer breeding seasons, 2015 and 2018. In addition, tracked birds were sampled for blood for biogeochemical dietary analysis. Chinstrap penguins displayed large interannual variation in foraging behavior between the two years, and dove deeper, utilized larger foraging areas during late breeding stages and showed enriched values of δ15N in the first- compared to the second- year. Conversely, macaroni penguins dove to similar depths and displayed similar values of δ15N in both years. Our results suggest that potentially low krill abundances in the waters around Bouvetøya in 2015 forced the chinstrap penguins to search for alternative prey, like myctophid fishes, which resulted in increased overlap in the two species' foraging niche. Consequently, the chinstrap penguins may have faced increased interspecific competition for prey or catabolism from food shortage. Irrespective, our findings may partly explain the decreasing number of breeding chinstrap penguins at the world's most remote island, Bouvetøya.