Research Awards to focus on extremes of life in Antarctica

Media Statement

26 February 2016

New Research Awards to focus on extremes of life in Antarctica and its surrounding oceans

The New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute (NZARI) will support 7 new proposals that focus on the challenges of warming in Antarctica.

A significant component of this year’s NZARI funding allows researchers to test the resilience of life in the extreme environments of Antarctica, and the ability of organisms to adapt to changing environments.

One of the projects will take the researchers themselves to extremes and conduct New Zealand’s first winter science sortie in the McMurdo Dry Valleys since New Zealand ran a year round operation at Lake Vanda - more than 40 years ago. This time the focus will be on the limits of life in the extremely cold and long winter darkness.

Several of the proposals will focus on developing new methods and techniques to study marine mammals and birds (including Whales and Penguins) and the challenges of changing southern ocean conditions on their life cycles, habitats and distributions.

This year for the first time, NZARI will also make a post-doctoral scholar award to an early career researcher who will work on Antarctic Brittle Stars and determine their distributions in Antarctic and warmer waters. This award is not only for the highest quality research proposal but also recognises the need to be training the next generation of top quality Antarctic Researchers at the international level.

ENDS

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