Publications by authors named "Sabrina Heiser"

Oceanographic changes adjacent to Antarctica have global climatic and ecological impacts. However, this is the most challenging place in the world to obtain marine data due to its remoteness and inhospitable nature, especially in winter. Here, we present more than 2000 Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) profiles and associated water sample data collected with (almost uniquely) full year-round coverage from the British Antarctic Survey Rothera Research Station at the west Antarctic Peninsula.

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Meiosis and syngamy generate an alternation between two ploidy stages, but the timing of these two processes varies widely across taxa, thereby generating life cycle diversity. One hypothesis suggests that life cycles with long-lived haploid stages are correlated with selfing, asexual reproduction, or both. Though mostly studied in angiosperms, selfing and asexual reproduction are often associated with marginal habitats.

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The consequences of defensive secondary metabolite concentrations and interspecific metabolite diversity on grazers have been extensively investigated. Grazers which prefer certain food sources are often found in high abundance on their host and as a result, understanding the interaction between the two is important to understand community structure. The effects of intraspecific diversity, however, on the grazer are not well understood.

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The common Antarctic red alga sp. is rich in halogenated monoterpenes with known anticancer and antimicrobial properties and extracts of sp. have strong ecological activity in deterring feeding by sympatric herbivores.

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Dense macroalgal forests on the Western Antarctic Peninsula serve important ecological roles both in terms of considerable biomass for primary production as well as in being ecosystem engineers. Their function within the Antarctic ecosystem has been described as a crucial member of a community-wide mutualism which benefits macroalgal species and dense assemblages of associated amphipod grazers. However, there is a cheater within the system that can feed on one of the most highly chemically defended macroalgal hosts.

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The West Antarctic Peninsula shelf is a region of high seasonal primary production which supports a large and productive food web, where macronutrients and inorganic carbon are sourced primarily from intrusions of warm saline Circumpolar Deep Water. We examined the cross-shelf modification of this water mass during mid-summer 2015 to understand the supply of nutrients and carbon to the productive surface ocean, and their subsequent uptake and cycling. We show that nitrate, phosphate, silicic acid and inorganic carbon are progressively enriched in subsurface waters across the shelf, contrary to cross-shelf reductions in heat, salinity and density.

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