(Table 2) Properties of relict ice and sand wedges from six sites near Rio Gallegos, southern Patagonia

Relict sand wedges are ubiquitous in southern Patagonia. At six sites we conducted detailed investigations of stratigraphy, soils, and wedge frequency and characteristics. Some sections contain four or more buried horizons with casts. The cryogenic features are dominantly relict sand wedges with an average depth, maximum apparent width, minimum apparent width, and H/W of 78, 39, 3.8, and 2.9 cm, respectively. The host materials are fine-textured (silt loam, silty clay loam, clay loam) till and the infillings are aeolian sand. The soils are primarily Calciargidic Argixerolls that bear a legacy of climate change. Whereas the sand wedges formed during very cold (-4 to -8 °C or colder) and dry (ca. <=100 mm precipitation/yr) glacial periods, petrocalcic horizons from calcium carbonate contributed by dustfall formed during warmer (7 °C or warmer) and moister (>= 250 mm/yr) interglacial periods. The paleo-argillic (Bt) horizons reflect unusually moist interglacial events where the mean annual precipitation may have been 400 mm/yr. Permafrost was nearly continuous in southern Patagonia during the Illinoian glacial stage (ca. 200 ka), the early to mid-Pleistocene (ca. 800-500 ka), and on two occasions during the early Pleistocene (ca. 1.0-1.1 Ma).

Thermal reaction norms of growth in Atlantic and Pacific silverside fishes

How organisms may adapt to rising global temperatures is uncertain, but concepts can emerge from studying adaptive physiological trait variations across existing spatial climate gradients. Many ectotherms, particularly fish, have evolved increasing genetic growth capacities with latitude (i.e. countergradient variation (CnGV) in growth), which are thought to be an adaptation primarily to strong gradients in seasonality. In contrast, evolutionary responses to gradients in mean temperature are often assumed to involve an alternative mode, 'thermal adaptation'. We measured thermal growth reaction norms in Pacific silverside populations (Atherinops affinis) occurring across a weak latitudinal temperature gradient with invariant seasonality along the North American Pacific coast. Instead of thermal adaptation, we found novel evidence for CnGV in growth, suggesting that CnGV is a ubiquitous mode of reaction-norm evolution in ectotherms even in response to weak spatial and, by inference, temporal climate gradients. A novel, large-scale comparison between ecologically equivalent Pacific versus Atlantic silversides (Menidia menidia) revealed how closely growth CnGV patterns reflect their respective climate gradients. While steep growth reaction norms and increasing growth plasticity with latitude in M. menidia mimicked the strong, highly seasonal Atlantic coastal gradient, shallow reaction norms and much smaller, latitude-independent growth plasticity in A. affinis resembled the weak Pacific latitudinal temperature gradient.