Samples from Discovery Expedition offer up data on climate change a century on
It was one of the most famous scientific research exploration ships in the world, facing treacherous seas and unknown danger on the voyage to the largely unchartered wilderness of Antarctica.
Now, more than 100 years since the Dundee-built RSS Discovery set out in August 1901, commanded by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, scientists from the city have revealed the ship is still yielding secrets.
An examination of biological samples returned to Britain in 1904 by Captain Scott – who returned to Britain a national hero – and his crew has revealed potentially crucial information for future studies into climate change.
Specimens of cyanobacteria – commonly known as blue-green algae – have been examined by researchers from the University of Dundee, the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London and the Brain Chemistry Laboratory in Wyoming.
The research, to be published in the European Journal of Phycology, provides a snapshot of conditions on the frozen continent before widespread human activity, said Geoffrey Codd, emeritus professor of microbiology at Dundee.
Prof Codd, who worked on the project, said: “These findings from the Discovery expedition will provide crucial baseline information given the steady global increase in cyanobacterial populations. These increases are in response to climate change and the growing human pressures on our water resources.”
He added: “Using modern analytical methods, we have identified several cyanobacterial toxins in the material, the earliest evidence of these toxins in Antarctica from a period before any real human influence on the continent and before the current period of increasing evidence for climate change.”
Cyanobacteria are commonplace in water bodies throughout the world, including Scot- land. Often concentrated in clumps on the surface of lochs, reservoirs, rivers and along shorelines, blooms and mats can be toxic and are capable of killing animals and causing serious illness in humans.
The team of researchers concluded that the concentration of toxins is likely to have been even higher when the material was originally gathered.
Prof Codd added: “It is interesting to think that samples returned on that iconic ship are still proving valuable to science.”
Discovery was designed to spearhead the British National Antarctic Expedition. Captain Scott and a number of his men died in March 1912 following the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole.
COMMENT “These findings from the Discovery Expedition will provide crucial baseline information” PROF GEOFFREY CODD