Dr Claudia Colesie in Antarctica

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A journey to the unknown

4
minutes reading time

In December 2023 Dr Claudia Colesie, a terrestrial ecologist in the University’s School of GeoSciences, travelled with a team of scientists to Antarctica. Their destination was the unexplored Zavodovski Island, said to be one of the stormiest places on Earth.

Dr Colesie has been at the University since 2019 and over the course of her career so far, her work has taken her from continental Antarctica to Arctic Svalbard, Sweden and the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Clearly, she is no stranger to going the extra mile to further the understanding of plant science.

This short film tells us about her journey to one of the most remote places on this planet, which was to prove to be one of her most unpredictable journeys.

Here we find out a little about what inspires her…

“What drives me is the wonder and diversity of life,” Dr Colesie reflects. “Just imagine what the living conditions in Antarctica are like: temperatures as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius; up to four months of complete darkness during the winter; all available water is frozen – yet still life finds its way.

We are at the brink of losing this fascinating world, even before we fully understand how it works. Only if we record and understand these organisms now, can we try to safeguard their future.”

And record this venture into the unknown is exactly what Dr Colesie did, despite a media crew who had planned to attend, changing those plans due to the extreme circumstances.

Facing into the storm

A sudden outbreak of bird flu made the film crew reconsider. The remaining team of four researchers – a seal expert, an ornithologist, and a volcanologist accompanied Dr Colesie – faced incredibility serious storms, to the point where their experienced skipper called them ‘the mother of all storms’, and one member of the science crew had to leave due to a medical emergency.

But did Dr Colesie consider turning back at any point?

“I never questioned whether or not I would carry on,” she muses. “We had the most competent team of sailors, field guides and scientists put together, and it was due to their resilience and our shared commitment that we moved on.”

There is clearly a very real need to share and communicate, at the heart of Dr Colesie’s work. Her teaching at the University encompasses everything from the most practical field trips at undergraduate level through to nurturing original research at the most advanced levels of study.

“I am teaching mostly on field courses at the undergraduate level because I think it is most important for our students to get hands-on experience straight from the start,” she comments.

“At a more advanced level, my PhD students are studying vegetation in the Polar Regions on various scales,” she continues.

“One of my students, Charlotte Walshaw, for example has mapped vegetation across all of Antarctica’s ice-free areas and coastal snowpacks, revealing vegetation presence in previously unknown areas and insights into new areas of conservation interest. This map is so important because the size and inaccessible nature of Antarctica greatly hinders ground-based efforts to map all locations of vegetation across the continent.”

For students considering a PhD at Edinburgh, they may be interested to know that this one-woman powerhouse is currently taking on PhD candidates.

Teamwork

Sharing that commitment to the student experience and the practice of teaching in the School of GeoSciences, thanks must go to Vojtech Hybl who had the foresight to teach Dr Colesie some filming techniques before she left Edinburgh, and Katrina Wesencraft, who set such provocative questions to be posed, and thought through, while travelling in such wild conditions.

The discoveries made by Dr Colesie on the Island of Zavodovski will feed directly into the government’s management plan for the South Sandwich Islands and will help to regulate future visits both by researchers and by potential tourists.

It will also influence the course of many researchers’ investigations.

“New records of species and their distribution are always exciting,” Dr Colesie reflects. “This research trip will help the community to recognise the inherent resilience of some species but also the fragility of the ecosystem.”

We hope you enjoy this foray into the life of a wholly inspiring Edinburgh researcher, who is so obviously more than a little committed to her cause.