A cross-disciplinary approach to understanding Antarctic Ice Sheet histories: combining cosmogenic nuclides with records of Antarctic springtails in Dronning Maud Land

Abstract

Our understanding of Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution has largely relied on geological evidence from a combination of onshore and offshore archives. In particular, terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (e.g., 10Be, 26Al, 36Cl, 14C) have now been extensively employed to assess the timing and drivers of past ice sheet change. Yet, such chronologies are incomplete, can be compromised by complex burial-exposure histories, and are not ideally suited to reconstructing the long-term (hundreds of thousands to millions of years) evolution of the ice sheet. To address this gap in understanding long-term Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution, we investigate the application of a cross-disciplinary approach that incorporates a combination of geological and biological evidence. Recent work has implied that certain biota, such as Antarctic springtails (Arthropoda: Collembola), survived consecutive glacial periods in ice-free refugia by shifting up and down nunataks or on moraines above the ice (see: Stevens and Mackintosh, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0590). Due to these prolonged periods of isolation, springtails have now developed high levels of species endemism across Antarctica. These species are often short-range endemics, and now combined with extensive molecular data are the only terrestrial invertebrate group with unequivocal Antarctic provenance across successive glacial maxima on the continent. As a result, incorporating these growing records of Antarctic springtail distribution into chronological studies may yield a more complete understanding of ice sheet evolution through time. Here, we demonstrate the use of this combined approach across the whole of Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica.