How did plants get to Antarctica?

You might wonder how a plant-life ecosystem came to being in an environment that lacks sunlight, has nutrition-poor soil and is subjected to freezing temperatures.

Fossil remains of plants discovered primarily in the western Antarctic Peninsula tell of a past when the landscape was actually lush and green. When Antarctica split from the Gondwana supercontinent 200 million years ago and drifted south, thousands of plant species died out as the continent cooled. Happily, a small minority of Antarctica’s plants adapted to the extreme conditions and thrived.

Vascular plants in Antarctica

Vascular plants contain a system of tubes – you may recall xylem and phloem from your biology lessons – to enable them to photosynthesise. This sets them apart from plants like mosses, lichens and fungi.

Only two species of vascular plants are found on the entire continent: Antarctic hair grass and Antarctic pearlwort. Antarctic hair grass is incredibly durable, capable of withstanding trampling from seal and penguin colonies that regularly traverse the area. Antarctic pearlwort, which is most commonly found in rocky areas, can grow up to an impressive 5cm in height and produces small yellow flowers, making it quite unique to the region.

Other types of plant life in Antarctica

Antarctica is home to an abundance of lichens, bryophytes, algae and fungi. These organisms don’t have roots and consequently don’t require a complex intake of nutrients to survive. Normally found in damp areas, they thrive thanks to their ability to absorb water easily, despite extremely harsh conditions. The Antarctic boasts seven hundred species of algae, a testament to the incredible survival ability of these plants.

Alien plant life

Over decades of exploration, numerous alien species have been transferred to the continent and its nearby islands — some intentionally and others unwittingly. South Georgia Island, formerly a whaling and sealing colony, is now home to 26 non-native species of vascular plants, which have thrived due to the lack of predators and relatively mild winters on the island.

The future of Antarctica’s plants

The rapid increase in the growth of mosses in the region has led experts to express concern about the warming of the Antarctic and the planet. Over the past 150 years, life has been seen developing in areas that were once considered too barren for such organisms. This may be due to air temperature increases of 3°C in the Antarctic Peninsula – that’s five times the mean rate of global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

While it seems inevitable that plants in Antarctica will continue to change and develop — not always in positive ways — there is a much greater variety of plant life than you might expect in this hostile, icy terrain. Explore it for yourself on your own Antarctica cruise trip, such as our Antarctica & Patagonia Expedition on the MS Fram, and witness the astonishing resilience of nature against the odds.