ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: NOVEL APPROACHES TO STUDYING BIODIVERSITY IN REMOTE AREAS: DISTRIBUTION OF LICHENS AND PENGUINS ACROSS THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA. Paula Victoria Casanovas, Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Directed By: Dr. William F. Fagan, Department of Biology, University of Maryland and Dr. Heather J. Lynch, Department of Ecology & Evolution, Stony Brook University Biodiversity inventories are a critical resource, providing baseline information for assessing environmental changes over time. In many cases, the underlying datasets are generated by “opportunistic” sampling efforts or they are consolidated from diverse datasets collected for different purposes. These datasets are typically patchy and incomplete, requiring the use of sophisticated statistical analyses. The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is one of those areas where direct observation of species distribution is difficult; it is also an area that in recent decades has been experiencing important environmental changes, which influence population and ecosystem dynamics. I addressed biogeographical questions in the AP archipelago, using remote sensing and opportunistic data sets for two very different groups of organisms: lichens and penguins. Although taxonomically different, both groups are key components of the AP terrestrial ecosystem, and share the need to couple biodiversity surveys with modeling to understand species distribution and abundance patterns in large areas of remote wilderness. The results of this dissertation work are interesting to polar biologists, because evidence suggests that the input of nutrients by seabirds can significantly impact floral diversity and abundance in nutrient-poor polar communities. The datasets and protocols for data collection and analyses generated in this project are valuable in themselves for the scientific community. They could be used as the basis for a valuable and practicable monitoring program and procedures for the evaluation of the data derived from it. In the Antarctic Peninsula in particular, this information will aid in the delineation and management of protected areas, as well as in the evaluation of the impacts of climate change and human visitation to the most traveled locations. Furthermore, this research provided an example of how an approach that integrates the use of existing remote-sensing products with independent ongoing field sampling efforts, “citizen scientist” data collection, and historical datasets can yield low- cost, high-benefit studies that can be useful both to understand how species respond to their environment, and to help environmental managers to predict and cope with imminent changes due to global warming. NOVEL APPROACHES TO STUDYING BIODIVERSITY IN REMOTE AREAS: DISTRIBUTION OF LICHENS AND PENGUINS ACROSS THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA. By Paula Victoria Casanovas Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Advisory Committee: Professor William F. Fagan, Chair Dr. Heather J. Lynch, Co-chair Dr. Marjorie L. Reaka Dr. Carlos Machado Dr. Paula DePriest Dr. Stephen Prince © Copyright by Paula Victoria Casanovas 2013 Preface Antarctica: the windiest, coldest, driest, wildest continent on earth. Antarctica is immense in all possible dimensions. the silence is immense, everything seems suspended in time by layers of ancient snow. the noise is immense, glaciers calving, penguin calling each other in organized cacophony. the smell is immense, guano and elephant seals. the sky is immense, deep blue or orange or red, it extents infinite above as it does the sea below. Antarctica is powerful in all possible dimensions. from peace to torment in hours or minutes. Proud mountains stand stoically againts the fuiry of the wind. the wind has no mercy and nor does the ice. it expands crashing rocks and covering the ocean with its thick and cold skin. life and death are subject to this power. Antarctica is beautiful in all possible dimensions. beautiful because it is immense and because is powerful. beautiful because is full of mysteries and contradictions. beautiful because is simple but is complex. as with all beautiful things it is painful to think that she could be subdue by the hands of my kind. ii I have been very lucky, and I have always the luxury of having exceptional good and dedicated mentors. I am writing this today because my two mentors, Heather Lynch and Bill Fagan, believed in me. I am deeply thankful to both of them for guiding me with knowledge, patience and freedom of following my own questions and ideas. I would have been lost many times in the world of graduate school if I did not such good lab mates. They not only made my life through this last chapter of being a student much easier, but also fun. I thank them and I am happy to have now very good friends on them. And I would have been lost many times in the white continent and its deep waters if I did not have such good ship mates, not to mention that I could have been left alone in an isolated island if it was not for them to remember picking me up. Many thanks to all of them, for their support and friendship. I also want to thank the students who worked with me all these years. They taught me, of course, much more than what they learned from me. Their help was invaluable. I deeply thank my parents for, in one way or another, giving me the tools for being a free thinker. I always have their unconditional support, as I have the unconditional support and love of my siblings. They are always with me when I need them most, no matter how many kilometers there are between the US East coast or Marguerite Bay and Northern Patagonia. And I thank Eduardo, from the bottom of my heart. For his love and support I started this adventure, and because of his love and support is it that I am writing this now. iii Dedication A Eduardo Zattara, compañero de aventuras iv Acknowledgements General dissertation acknowledgements: My work was supported by NASA Headquarters under the NASA Earth and Space Fellowship Program – Grant NNX10AN55H. This research was also supported by the US National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (Award No NSF/OPP – 0739515 to H. J. Lynch and W. F. Fagan). I am grateful to Oceanites Inc., and Ron Naveen for all his support, especially on field logistics. Chapter 2 acknowledgements: I thank Ron I. Lewis-Smith, Helen Peat, Valdon Smith and an anonymous reviewer for their useful comments and suggestions to this manuscript. This chapter has been published in its entirety in Ecography, 36 (2), 209–219. Chapter 3 acknowledgements: I thank Dr. James Lawrey for allowing the use of the data from the Lichen Biomonitoring Project for this work, and for his useful comments on the manuscript. I thank Dr. Paula DePriest for her insight and comments throughout the development of this project. Also, I thank the field photographers and the undergrad researchers (especially Beth Stevenson and Julien Buchbinder) involve in the identification and preparation of the specimens. I am grateful to Dr. Elise Zipkin for providing assistance on the detection modeling. Chapter 4 acknowledgements: I thank all the field photographers and the undergrad researchers involve in the identification and preparation of the specimens, especially Beth Stevenson (for her work at the Smithsonian Institution) and Julien Buchbinder (for his work on identification of digital specimens and assistant on the development of the database). I thank the support of Linblad Expeditions on board the National Geographic Explorer, and OneOcean Expeditions on board the Akademik Ioffe. v Chapter 5 acknowledgements: I thank Oceanites, Inc. and the Antarctic Site Inventory project, for allowing the use of its biodiversity database. For the use of ocean color image products, I acknowledge the Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. vi Table of Contents Preface........................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................ vii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................x List of Figures .............................................................................................................. xi Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Multi-scale patterns of moss and lichen richness on the Antarctic Peninsula ......................................................................................................................10 Abstract ....................................................................................................................10 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 11 Materials and Methods .............................................................................................14 Study Area ............................................................................................................14