The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database

Antarctica is one of Earth’s most untouched, inhospitable, and poorly-known regions. Although knowledge of its biodiversity has increased over recent decades, a diverse, wide-ranging and spatially explicit compilation of the biodiversity that inhabits Antarctica’s permanently ice-free areas is unavailable. This absence hinders both Antarctic biodiversity research and the integration of Antarctica in global biodiversity-related studies. Fundamental and applied research on biodiversity patterns, ecological structure and function, and options for conservation are reliant on spatially-resolved, taxonomically-consistent observations. Such information is especially important for modern, data-driven biodiversity science, both in Antarctica and globally, and forms the backbone of biodiversity informatics, reflected for example in the Darwin Core Standard used by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Biodiversity data are also essential to fulfil the conservation requirements for Antarctica, as set out in the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and inform the design of systematic surveys to address biodiversity and ecological knowledge gaps, for both specific taxa and ecosystems. Such surveys are key requirements for understanding and mitigating the impacts of environmental change on the region’s biodiversity. Here, we address these requirements through the public release of The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database. In 2008, we extracted a subset of biodiversity records only from terrestrial ice-free areas, from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Antarctic Biodiversity Database. We have subsequently added thousands of records from a range of sources; checking, and where necessary (and possible), correcting the spatial location, clarifying, cross-referencing and harmonizing taxonomy with globally-recognized sources, and documenting the original source of records. The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database spans the early 1800s to 2019 (with most records collected after 1950) and represents the most comprehensive consolidation of Antarctic ice-free biodiversity occurrence data yet compiled into a single database. The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database contains 35,654 records of 1,890 species in over 800 genera across six kingdoms and spans all Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions.Detailed metadata can be found in the Supplementary Materials of:Terauds, A., Lee, J.R., Wauchope, H., Raymond, B., Bergstrom, D.M., Convey, P., Mason, C., Patterson, C.R., Robinson, S.A, Van de Putte, A., Watts, D. and Chown, S.L. (2025) The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database. Ecology.

南极洲是地球上受人类干扰最少、环境最为严苛且认知最为匮乏的区域之一。尽管近数十年来学界对南极洲生物多样性的认知有所提升，但目前仍缺乏一套涵盖南极洲永久无冰区所有栖息生物类群、覆盖范围广泛且空间显式的生物多样性汇编数据集。这种数据缺失既制约了南极本土生物多样性研究，也阻碍了南极洲相关数据融入全球生物多样性相关研究的进程。针对生物多样性分布格局、生态系统结构与功能及保护策略的基础与应用研究，均依赖于空间解析清晰、分类学规范统一的观测数据。此类信息对于南极洲乃至全球范围内的现代数据驱动型生物多样性科学研究尤为关键，同时也是生物多样性信息学的核心支撑——例如全球生物多样性信息设施（Global Biodiversity Information Facility）所采用的达尔文核心标准（Darwin Core Standard），便印证了这一点。生物多样性数据对于落实《南极条约环境保护议定书》中规定的南极洲保护要求同样至关重要，同时也可为针对特定类群与生态系统的系统性调查设计提供依据，以填补生物多样性与生态学相关的认知空白。此类调查是理解并减缓环境变化对该区域生物多样性造成影响的核心必要条件。为此，我们通过公开发布无冰区南极生物多样性数据库（The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database）来满足上述需求。2008年，我们从南极研究科学委员会（Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, SCAR）南极生物多样性数据库中，仅提取了陆地永久无冰区的生物多样性记录子集。后续我们又从多类来源补充了数千条记录，并对这些记录进行了全面校验：在必要且可行的前提下修正空间坐标，明确分类学信息、开展交叉比对并与全球公认的分类学数据源统一协调，同时完整记录每条记录的原始来源。无冰区南极生物多样性数据库的时间跨度为19世纪初至2019年（其中绝大多数记录采集于1950年之后），是目前已整合为单一数据库的南极无冰区生物多样性出现记录中最为全面的数据集。该数据库共包含35654条记录，涵盖6个生物界、800余个属的1890个物种，且覆盖了所有南极保护生物地理区（Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions）。详细的元数据可参阅以下文献的补充材料：Terauds, A., Lee, J.R., Wauchope, H., Raymond, B., Bergstrom, D.M., Convey, P., Mason, C., Patterson, C.R., Robinson, S.A., Van de Putte, A., Watts, D. 及 Chown, S.L.（2025）《无冰区南极生物多样性数据库》，《生态学》（Ecology）。