Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity occurs almost exclusively in ice-free areas that cover less than 1% of the continent. Climate change will alter the extent and configuration of ice-free areas, yet the distribution and severity of these effects remain unclear. Here we quantify the impact of twenty-first century climate change on ice-free areas under two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate forcing scenarios using temperature-index melt modelling. Under the strongest forcing scenario, ice-free areas could expand by over 17,000 km² by the end of the century, close to a 25% increase. Most of this expansion will occur in the Antarctic Peninsula, where a threefold increase in ice-free area could drastically change the availability and connectivity of biodiversity habitat. Isolated ice-free areas will coalesce, and while the effects on biodiversity are uncertain, we hypothesize that they could eventually lead to increasing regional-scale biotic homogenization, the extinction of less-competitive species and the spread of invasive species.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	climate change, ice melt, Antarctic, habitat
Research Division:	Environmental Sciences
Research Group:	Climate change impacts and adaptation
Research Field:	Ecological impacts of climate change and ecological adaptation
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Management of Antarctic and Southern Ocean environments
Objective Field:	Biodiversity in Antarctic and Southern Ocean environments
UTAS Author:	Raymond, B (Dr Ben Raymond)
UTAS Author:	Terauds, A (Dr Aleks Terauds)
ID Code:	118139
Year Published:	2017
Web of Science® Times Cited:	195
Deposited By:	CRC-Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems
Deposited On:	2017-07-05
Last Modified:	2018-04-20
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