Temporal and spatial variation in stress tolerance in Belgica antarctica populations from distinct islands

Environmental conditions are the major drivers of species distribution, and terrestrial Antarctica arguably presents the most dramatic challenges for its inhabitants. Many animals rely on acclimation to enhance their stress tolerance to face unfavorable conditions. Some animals can also rely on their phenotypic plasticity to respond to these unfavorable conditions without the need to slowly experience increasing levels of stress to enhance their stress tolerance (i.e., acclimate).
<br/>Belgica antarctica can rely on both types of strategies, but since they evolved to live in a habitat with such dramatic environmental changes as Antarctica, they are very sensitive to any type of stress (e.g., a sudden drop in temperature, or a bout of high-speed wind). Studying the extent to which B. antarctica rely on each of these strategies to survive and how environmental variation can shape this species’ biology across distinct populations (i.e., that might experience distinct selective pressures) is important to help us better understand how polyextremophiles adapt and evolve while inhabiting extreme environments. This project focused on studying stress tolerance in B. antarctica populations of three distinct islands, Torgersen, Cormorant, and Outcast. In addition, we investigated how these responses to stress change between early- and late-summer (i.e., between larvae that recently finished overwintering - here referred as summer larvae, and larvae that are preparing to overwinter - here referred as winter larvae).