Isotope variations of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen in florae from the Schirmacher Oasis, East Antarctica

Abstract

Comparative biochemical and isotope-chemical investigations of cosmopolitical plants open up ways of obtaining parameters from different parts of the Earth which are characterised by variations in the habitat due to different environments. As an Antarctic oasis, the Schirmacher Oasis disposes of adequate favourable ecological conditions for the growth of lower plants.

In the present paper, results of isotope studies of lichens, mosses and algae of the Schirmacher Oasis are given and peculiarities of the habitats which influence the isotope contents of the plants are discussed.

Keywords:

• algae
• Antarctica
• biology
• carbon-13
• deuterium
• isotope ratio
• lichens
• nitrogen-15
• plants
• stable isotopes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mr H. Birkenfeld, Mrs Ch. Schachtschneider and Mrs E. Kirchner for carrying out the mass-spectrometric analyses. They are also grateful to Dr W. Richter for valuable suggestions made in the discussion of the results.

Notes

^†Original version published in Vol. 51 of ‘ZfI-Mitteilungen’, Leipzig, Germany, 1982, pp. 101–110.