Editorial: Biodiversity of Antarctic and Subantarctic ecosystems

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) adopted a work program (2019–2030) that included, under its first objective, the interlinkages between biodiversity and climate change (IPBES, 2019). Because most ecosystems worldwide face multiple anthropogenic pressures, however, it is difficult to disentangle the specific effects of climate change from those of others such as habitat degradation, pollution or overexploitation. Against this backdrop, the Antarctic and subAntarctic (ASA) regions —including some of the most pristine environments remaining on Earth— offer unparalleled opportunities to understand, evaluate and predict the impacts of climate change on biodiversity in the general absence of other confounding anthropogenic drivers. These regions serve as natural laboratories for two main reasons: first, ASA biodiversity has already endured repeated and drastic climatic oscillations over timescales ranging from decades to tens of millions of years, providing a unique archive of responses to past change; second, some ASA areas are now experiencing some of the fastest rates of warming on the planet. The South Shetland Islands, for example, have undergone profound transformations over the past four decades, including the emergence of new ice-free areas, streams and freshwater bodies (Lee et al., 2017; Petsch et al., 2022; Tóth et al., 2025). Studying these transitions provides essential insights into how climate change reshapes ecosystems when other anthropogenic drivers remain minimal