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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Modeling the Response of the Planktonic Microbial Community to Warming Effects in Maritime Antarctic Lakes

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Abstract In this chapter, we describe the design and prognoses given by the simulation of an ecological model dealing with the functioning of the microbial community of a maritime Antarctic lake, whose main ecological features are also reported. The model is based on carbon fluxes through the planktonic community and the carbon subsides from the benthic mosses covering the lake bottom and microbial mats spread over the lake’s catchment. It describes the dynamics of the bacterioplankton, phytoplankton, and organic matter, both particulate and dissolved, during the austral summer, with temperature and solar radiation as the main forcing functions driving the response of the modeled state variables. The model predicts that increases in temperatures of a few degrees would strongly affect the functioning of these ecosystems, mainly by activation of biogeochemical cycles that enhance organic carbon supply to the lake, thus favoring mainly heterotrophic bacteria. Additionally, increases in solar radiation, which could be linked to earlier ice melting driven by higher temperatures, would also favor phytoplankton, this also being stimulated by temperature increases although not so strongly as for bacterioplankton. These predictions are of environmental relevance in an area such as the maritime Antarctica, where warming is being quite accelerated.