Polish National Polar Project for 2005- 2006
Funded by Ministry of Science and Informatics
Nr PBZ-KBN-108/P04/2004

STRUCTURE, EVOLUTION AND DYNAMICE OF LITOSPHERE, CRYOSPHERE AND BIOSPHERE IN ARCTIC AND IN ANTARCTIC

Task 1. Arctic and Antarctic litosphere, its structure and evolution in Earth geodynamic system (coordinator prof. dr hab. Aleksander Guterch)

Task 2. Abiotic polar environment and its reaction on globar climate change (coordinator dr Piotr Głowacki)

Task 3: Evolution, structure and dynamice of biodiversity in polar areas - comparative analyse (coordinator: Prof. dr hab. Jan Marcin Węsławski)

Task 3 - named as BIOSPHERE is divided into:

Subtask 3a - To describe the similar and dissimilar patterns in the biodiversity of two polar areas within comparable part of both ecosystems.

Subtask 3b - to demonstrate the links between biodiversity level and functioning of examined biota (production, nutrients exchange, metabolizm).

Central hypothesis

Climate changes are affecting the biodiversity from genetic to habitat level. The key mechanism that links climate and biodiversity is the temperature influence on individual's metabolic processes and its reproductive strategy. There is a cascade of causes and effects:
Lower temperature brings lower metabolic turnover, what slows the growth, what makes longer life span, what makes organisms to grow larger in size. Population consisting of large, long living organisms has low individual mortality ratek and competition among separate age cohorts of the same species. Specific age cohorts from the same species occupy habitats and niche's that would be occupied by different species in temperate region. In such way, the low temperature promotes lower biodiversity.
Biodiversity change is linked with the change of the food web functioning (in cold water, large species prevail, while in warmer water smaller are dominant). From strong "pelago-benthic coupling" towards elevated consumption ratek within water kolumn in temperate region (Petersen i Curtis 1984). Final effect of this change is the change in carbon deposition. Sediment paleoanalyse (microfossils, organic carbon kontent) would allow to detect the past sequences of warm/cold events and hence the biodiversity changes over the time. .

Polish summary