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Moss δ 13 C: Implications for subantarctic palaeohydrological reconstructions
- Source :
- Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 453:20-29
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2016.
-
Abstract
- Southern Ocean Islands, despite their equitable oceanic climates, have recently experienced a number of pronounced climate variations. Shifts in water availability in this region are of concern; however, methods of measuring water availability are currently inadequate. Recent advances using stable carbon isotopes (δ 13 C) in Antarctic mosses to record long-term variations in water availability suggest that this technique might be applicable in other locations where conditions are cold enough to produce meaningful moss growth for reconstructions. Verification of this technique at each new location is essential, however, due to disparity between species and climates. Here, variations in δ 13 C BULK with growth water availability were measured in three moss species on subantarctic Macquarie Island. We found these subantarctic mosses showed no difference in δ 13 C BULK signatures between growth water environments and displayed more negative δ 13 C BULK ranges than those from East Antarctica, suggesting that climatic differences override the microclimate signal. Despite significant differences in leaf cell morphology there was no variation in δ 13 C BULK between these subantarctic species. It may be that these species are unsuitable as biological proxies due to their growth form being less dense than the turf forming Antarctic species. This underlines the need to carryout preliminary research into moss carbon isotope fractionation for each new region, and for each species, where palaeohydrological reconstructions are planned – a step that is often not given appropriate consideration in palaeo-research.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
biology
δ13C
Microclimate
Paleontology
Climate change
East antarctica
15. Life on land
Oceanography
biology.organism_classification
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Moss
Leaf cell
Isotopes of carbon
14. Life underwater
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Geology
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Earth-Surface Processes
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00310182
- Volume :
- 453
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........0f5ba371a775609791dec9bbceebfe5a