Description
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. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70000
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 35,654 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Terauds A (2025). The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database. Version 1.3. Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (ANTABIF). Occurrence dataset. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.4225/15/59100ba9157f7
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (ANTABIF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 8ff9e5d1-cc0e-4f3a-90c2-274039353f84. Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (ANTABIF) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
Keywords
Occurrence; Observation; ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS; PROTISTS; ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES; ANIMALS/INVERTEBRATES; PLANTS; Taxa; Taxonomy; Biota; Biodiversity
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- 203 Channel Highway
- +61 3 6232 3339
Geographic Coverage
Antarctica
Bounding Coordinates | South West [-86.647, -178.132], North East [-60.551, 173.849] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
No Description available
Kingdom | Chromista, Fungi, Animalia, Protozoa, Bacteria, Plantae, Unknown |
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Phylum | Marchantiophyta, Arthropoda, Protozoa, Myzozoa, Zygomycota, Oomycota, Mollusca, Tracheophyta, Ascomycota, Hepatophyta, Ciliophora, Bryophyta, Rotifera, Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Annelida, Chordata, Amoebozoa, Charophyta, Unknown, Bigyra, Chlorobi, Chlorophyta, Cercozoa, Cryptophyta, Choanozoa, Tardigrada, Nematoda, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Euglenozoa, Cyanophycota, Basidiomycota, Ochrophyta, Cnidaria |
Class | Sarcodina, Bryopsida, Dinophyceae, Pezizomycotina, Phyllopharyngea, Coscinodiscophyceae, Cyanophyceae , Clitellata, Pyramimonadophyceae, Betaproteobacteria, Tubulinea, Tremellomycetes, Entognatha, Phaeophyceae, Aves, Gymnostomatea, Not assigned, Dothideomycetes, Maxillopoda, Zygomycota, Gastropoda, Cyanophyceae, Andreaeopsida, Enoplea, Eurotatoria, Flavobacteriia, Diatomophyceae/Bacillariophyceae, Discosea, Magnoliopsida, Hexanauplia, Lobosa, Sordariomycetes, Not assigned to a class, Chlorophyceae, Hypotrichea, Kinetoplastea, Litostomatea, Insecta, Chlorophyta incertae sedis, Chlorobea, Clostridia, Choanoflagellatea, Arthoniomycetes, Thecofilosea, Ulvophyceae, Agaricomycetes, Cyanoprokaryota, Conjugatophyceae, Bacillariophyceae, Conjugatophyceae (zygnemaphyceae), Malacostraca, Leotiomycetes, Hydrozoa, Oligohymenophorea, Testacealobosea, Chrysophyceae, Cryptophyceae, Jungermanniopsida, Secernentea, Marchantiopsida, Arachnida, Liliopsida, Spirotrichea, Ascomycetes, Imbricatea, Trebouxiophyceae, Oligotrichea, Mammalia, Unknown, Dictyochophyceae, Euglenoidea, Bikosea, Euglenophyceae, Cyrtophoria, Alphaproteobacteria, Peronosporea, Eurotiomycetes, Lichinomycetes, Chromadorea, Oligochaeta, Lecanoromycetes, Eustigmatophyceae, Heterotardigrada, Actinobacteria, Nassophorea, Bacilli, Gammaproteobacteria, Klebsormidiophyceae, Xanthophyceae, Dinoflagellata incertae sedis, Branchiopoda, Orbiliomycetes, Eutardigrada |
Temporal Coverage
Start Date / End Date | 1820-01-01 / 2019-01-25 |
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Additional Metadata
Acknowledgements | Funding information: Belgian Science Policy Office, Grant/Award Numbers: FR/36/AN1/AntaBIS (EU-LifeWatch), n°RT/23/ADVANCE; Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship; Australian Research Council, Grant/Award Number: SRIEAS-SR200100005; Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future; Australian Antarctic Division, Grant/Award Numbers: AAS 4296, AAS 4297 |
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Alternative Identifiers | 8ff9e5d1-cc0e-4f3a-90c2-274039353f84 |
https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource?r=aas_4296_biodiversity_icefree_antarctica_db |