Classificação, cobertura vegetal e monitoramento térmico da camada ativa de solos da Peninsula Fildes, Ilha Rei George e Ilha Ardley, Antártica Marítima

• Autor(a) principal: Michel, Roberto Ferreira Machado
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/1622
• topic: Criossolos; Permafrost; Antártica Marítima; Criossolos; Permafrost; Antarctic Seas; CNPQ::CIENCIAS AGRARIAS::AGRONOMIA::CIENCIA DO SOLO

Peninsula and Ardley Island are among the first exposed areas after the last glacial maximum, since then many morphogenetic and pedogenetic processes developed, especially periglacial geomorphological processes and cryogenic pedogenesis. The main morphological, chemical and physical characteristics of different soil classes and the their pedogenesis were studied, along with the distribution of vegetation, landforms and soil types. The study was conducted as part of Project TERRANTAR; as subsidies for environmental monitoring and planing of the ecosystems of the Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island. The work was conducted in the laboratories of the Department of Soils, Federal University of Viçosa, from samples collected during the XXVI and XXVII Brazilian Antarctic operations. The soils showed a great variability in physical and chemical properties due to the large variation and mixture of source materials, and different degrees of influence by the fauna. The vegetation, consisting mainly of lichens and moss, have their distribution closely related to ornithogenic activities, mainly on coastal ecosystems. The study area shows evidence of high pedogenetic variety, but the predominance of terrain types derived from recent physical weathering. Arenosols/Entisolos and Cryosols/Gelisols are the main classes of soils found in Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island, Cambisols/Inceptisols, Gleysols/Inceptisols occur to a lesser extent, all with gelic features. The studied sites have been affected by human activity in specific areas and can be considered a strategic for monitoring climate change and impacts on flora and fauna. The context of this work and presented three papers run through the three fundamental aspects of the physical and biotic responsive to climate change in Antarctica: (1) characterization of the issue of regional climate behavior of the active layer, (2) monitoring the evolution vegetation in an area of high diversity, (3) spatial distribution of cryogenic soils in an area of great interest. Investigating, therefore, the effects of climate soil and vegetation within one of the largest ice-free area of Maritime Antarctica.