Welcome to Signy Research Station

The island has abundant wildlife and greenery – making it an ideal outdoor laboratory! Data has been collected about the wildlife here for decades – in fact, we’ve monitored the population size of the southern giant petrel since the 1960s. One in ten of the world’s population of these amazing birds live around Signy. 

Signy has a very special climate. In the winter, it’s essentially attached to the Antarctic mainland with sea ice, which means it is much colder than you might expect for an island (up to a chilly -39°) with clear skies (although regular storms pass through). In the summer, as the ice retreats, it has a more typical island climate, with warm and wet conditions and low clouds – the infamous ‘Signy mank’. 

The scientists here focus on birds and ecosystems on land – from mosses and bacteria to mites! There’s lots of marine life around Signy – anemones, starfish, sea squirts and sponges – as well as lots of seal species. Weddell, elephant, leopard, crabeater and fur seals can all be spotted around the island.  

A quick pit stop… 

The route to Signy from Rothera was slow, as the ship had to manoeuvre through lots of sea ice. Along the way, the ship spotted a buoy on the sea ice, and made a quick detour to collect it. It’s important that we leave nothing but footprints in Antarctica, so the crew retrieved this ocean litter and will bring it back to the UK! 

Get your walking boots on

We have some exciting science happening at Signy this year and it involves hiking around the island to get to the study sites.

Discovering diatoms 

Signy’s landscape is covered in lakes – there are 16 of them scattered across the island, with additional seasonal ones appearing and disappearing each year. In these lakes are something called diatoms – a kind of tiny algae (a type of plant).  

The type of diatoms that you find changes with the climate. And, by monitoring changes in the diatom ‘communities’, scientists are learning more about how Signy’s ecosystem is changing in response to climate change.   

Plants and permafrost 

Scientists are trying to work out whether the climate and environmental changes seen over the past twenty years are making a difference to the plants, permafrost (a thick layer of soil below the surface, that is permanently frozen) and soils across the wider Antarctic peninsula.  

There are two native vascular plants (plants that have tissues to transport water and nutrients) on Signy Island and these have spread across the island over the past ten or so years. Researchers are conducting some long-term experiments to find out why, and to understand how much and how fast the permafrost is being lost. 

Island science 

Another remote island in the Southern Ocean is Zavodovski Island. This volcanic island is uninhabited – by humans at least… 

It’s home to around one million breeding chinstrap penguins, making it the largest population of breeding penguins on Earth! It’s also home to some unique land-based (or terrestrial) biodiversity: mosses, lichens and invertebrates that survive the cold by living around volcanic vents. 

Because it’s an active volcano with a sheer coastline that’s battered by rough seas, it’s a tricky place for researchers to get to. But, in December last year a team of intrepid researchers made the 1,300-mile journey from the Falkland Islands, sailing for seven days over one of the world’s roughest oceans.  

They spent three weeks camping on the island, counting penguins on the ground and using drones. These more detailed counts were compared to photos taken at a higher altitude, by a plane. If these aerial photos prove to be an accurate way of counting penguins, they can be used to monitor the colonies in the future.