Publication details
One-year passive warming effect on antarctic lichens Placopsis antarctica
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Although in Antarctica, long-term ecophysiological studies have been carried out on the only two existing vascular plants, only few experiments have been focused on the far more species-rich and dominant cryptogamic biota. Here we report a field study of lichens growing under passive warming inside open top chambers (OTC) installed on Fildes Peninsula (King George Island, South Shetland Island Archipelago). We compared primary photochemical processes of photosynthesis between thalli of the lichen Placopsis antarctica growing for one year inside the OTC with controls outside OTC under ambient conditions. We measured effective quantum yield of photosystem II, and photosynthetic electron transport rate (ETR) in daily courses. Our results indicate that the OTC warming microenvironment leads to partial limitation of photosynthetic processes in P. antarctica during the austral summer season. We suggest, that the limitation is caused by accelerated dehydration of thalli inside OTC compared to the outside conditions which are generally colder and wetter, and thus shorter physiologically active periods of lichens in OTC. We deduct that global warming and correlated desiccation potentially decrease photosynthetical performance of lichens. |