Ardley Island

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Ardley Island
Waters Maxwell Bay
Archipelago South Shetland Islands
Geographical location 62 ° 12 '47 "  S , 58 ° 56' 0"  W Coordinates: 62 ° 12 '47 "  S , 58 ° 56' 0"  W.
Ardley Island (South Shetland Islands)
Ardley Island
length 2 km
width 1 km
surface 1.2 km²
Highest elevation 65  m

Ardley Island is an island in the archipelago of the South Shetland Islands .

geography

The island is located in Maxwell Bay just off the southwest coast of King George Island . At low tide it is connected to the Fildes Peninsula via the 400 m long Ardley Isthmus . With a length of two kilometers and a width of up to one kilometer, Ardley Island has an area of ​​1.2 km². The island is relatively flat, with heights of 30 to 40 meters. Only in the central part are more than 60 meters high.

In summer the island is almost ice-free. During this time of year there are smaller streams and lakes that feed themselves from meltwater.

history

Charted as the Ardley Peninsula , it was disembarked from the RRS Discovery II in 1935 by participants in the British Discovery Investigations . Name giver is Richard Arthur Blyth Ardley (1906-1942), officer of this ship on the research trips from 1929 to 1931 and from 1931 to 1933. However, aerial photographs of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) from 1956 proved the island character of Ardley Island.

On the north coast are the Chilean research station "Base Julio Ripamonti", which is only manned in summer, and the Argentine field hut "Ballve", at the northeast tip the Chilean field hut "Refugio Julio Ripamonti", which was built in 1981 by GDR scientists and is now also Chilean.

Flora and fauna

Gentoo penguins on Ardley Island in December 2018

Ardley Island has a dense and well developed vegetation for the Antarctic . The only higher species found is the Antarctic Schmiele , which has colonized the north coast in particular since the 1990s. Especially in the eastern part of the island there are large areas of moss made up of different species. In the northeast and east of the island, large amounts of excrement from the penguin colonies there hinder the development of the vegetation. The green alga Prasiola crispa is common in eutrophic areas with high levels of organic nitrogen . Lichen of the genera Himantormia and Usnea dominate the hills .

Three species of penguins breed on Ardley Island. The largest population is that of the gentoo penguin , with a range between 3000 and 6000 pairs . At the end of the 1970s the chinstrap penguin was represented by around 200 pairs. However, after the construction of the “Teniente Rodolfo Marsh” airport on the Fildes Peninsula, the number fell sharply and in the summer of 2014/15 was only 15 pairs. The population of the Adelie penguin has also decreased sharply from 1500 breeding pairs in the summer of 1993/94 to 260 in the summer of 2014/15. Other breeding birds on Ardley Island include the giant petrel , Cape petrel , spotted petrel , black-bellied sea creeper , white-faced sheathbill , Dominican gull , antipodean tern , sub-Antarctic kua and Antarctic kua .

In the waters of Maxwell Bay and on the beaches Ardley Islands are regularly Weddell seals , Crabeater , Southern elephant seals , Antarctic fur seals and leopard seals encountered.

In Ripamonti Lake could Midge Parochlus steinenii be detected.

natural reserve

To protect the bird populations and to create conditions for undisturbed research into the factors influencing them, Ardley Island was declared a specially protected area of ​​the Antarctic ASPA-150 according to Appendix V (Protection and Management of Areas) of the Environmental Protection Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty . The area is also designated as an Important Bird Area (AQ048) by BirdLife International .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ardley Island, King George Island (AQ048) , datasheet on the BirdLife International website, accessed July 23, 2018.
  2. ↑ H.-U. Peter et al. a .: Evaluation of the degree of endangerment of the areas Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island and development of management plans for designation as specially protected or managed areas , 2008, p. 9.
  3. ↑ H.-U. Peter et al. a .: Evaluation of the degree of endangerment of the areas Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island and development of the management plans for the designation as specially protected or managed areas , 2008, p. 94 ff. and Annex 5.
  4. ↑ a b c Ardley Island, Maxwell Bay, King George Island (25 de Mayo) (PDF; 1.08 MB), Management Plan for Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 150, accessed on July 14, 2016
  5. ↑ H.-U. Peter et al. a .: Evaluation of the degree of endangerment of the areas Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island and development of the management plans for designation as specially protected or managed areas , 2008, p. 234 ff.
  6. ↑ H.-U. Peter et al. a .: Evaluation of the degree of endangerment of the areas Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island and development of the management plans for designation as specially protected or managed areas , 2008, p. 182.
  7. ↑ H.-U. Peter et al. a .: Evaluation of the degree of endangerment of the areas Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island and development of the management plans for the designation as specially protected or managed areas , 2008, p. 183.
  8. ↑ Steffen Hahn, Klaus Reinhardt: Habitat preference and reproductive traits in the Antarctic midge Parochlus steinenii (Diptera: Chironomidae) (PDF; 135 kB). In: Antarctic Science 18, 2006, pp. 175-181 (English).