Two top plant and environmental scientists from Scotland are swapping the fields and polytunnels of Perthshire for the cold deserts of Antarctica.

They will study the ecology of ice-free parts of this extreme environment to try to understand more about the effects of environmental change on one of the world’s most sensitive habitats.

Professor David Hopkins and Dr Paul Dennis of SCRI, Scotland’s leading crop research institute at Invergowrie, Dundee, will spend several months studying the soil and the organisms living in it to provide a better understanding of the diversity of Antarctic soil organisms and the effects of environmental change.

The research will be concentrated on a 2000 km stretch of coastline and islands off Antarctica where the land is largely ice-free, running from the South Orkney Islands, across the South Shetland Islands, Adelaide Island, Alexander Island and Thurston Island. Study sites will include coastal areas and isolated mountain tops (nunataks) which penetrate the ice.

Professor Hopkins has conducted field research in Antarctica concentrating on the extreme environment of continental Antarctica before, but on this occasion the experimental work will take place in a part of the maritime Antarctic, where the conditions are usually a bit warmer.

"The aim of the research project is to determine which organisms live in the soils in different sites, how they live together in the different communities and how they are affected by changes to environmental factors such as temperature and the availability of liquid water," said Professor Hopkins.

"Knowing more about how the organisms are affected by changing environmental factors is important because Antarctica in general and especially the part of Antarctica where this project will be based is responding fastest to climate changes and is an important indicator for the rest of the world.

"We are not specifically going to explore only global warming but are trying to understand how climate affects organisms. For example, if you look at a two degree difference in temperature between 20^oC and 22^oC it would have very little effect. However the two degree difference between -1^oC and 1^oC is a very important difference.

"By studying organisms in a place which is very sensitive to small changes we can help develop a fundamental understanding of how organisms and biological systems respond to environmental changes.

“There is quite a large step between the research work in Antarctica and farming in Scotland but knowing and understanding how organisms respond to change is likely to show how they may respond to change elsewhere.

"The secondary reason for going is that Antarctica itself is very poorly understood from a biological point of view so it is of huge interest to scientists," added Professor Hopkins.

The Director of SCRI, Professor Peter Gregory, said, "SCRI is an international research centre based in Scotland and so we have involvement in projects around the globe.

"There is no doubt now that climate change is a major challenge for the global community so I’m delighted that SCRI’s scientists are working on the other side of the world as part of a team which is investigating environmental changes.

"The changes in climate already observed in Scotland are very much in line with global trends. Our own weather data collected at Invergowrie indicates temperatures rising by about 1°C over the last 40 years. It only reinforces the feeling that no matter where you live on the planet…we are all in this together. I’m delighted SCRI is playing its part."

Professor Hopkins will be in Antarctica for two months and Dr Dennis is spending a six month polar summer season conducting research on the Antarctic Peninsula. The research is being conducted as part of a joint SCRI, University of Stirling and British Antarctic Survey project, supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.

More information from:

Phil Taylor, Head of Communications, SCRI, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA. Tel: +44 (0)1382 562731

Notes to editors

The project coincides with International Polar Year, a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic running from March 2007 to March 2009, organised through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The International Polar Year covers two full annual cycles in the Arctic and Antarctic and will involve over 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. More information can be found on the International Polar Year website.