site.btaAntarctic Marine Biologist Jose Xavier: Our Task Is to Affirm Values of Antarctic Treaty through International Cooperation, Research

Assoc. Prof. Jose Xavier of the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre at the University of Coimbra in Portugal said in an interview for BTA's Ioanna Lashkova that their task is to affirm the values of the Antarctic Treaty by conducting international cooperation and high-quality scientific research. He was in Sofia to participate as a panelist in an international conference on the European sustainable planet policy, with a focus on polar research. The forum was held at the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia and was organized by the National Center for Polar Studies and the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute.

The Antarctic marine ecologist said that the Portuguese Polar Programme includes over 100 scientists and 10 to 15 teams working in various fields: marine, land, and atmospheric sciences. The main goal is international cooperation in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty, although they also hold an Observer status on the Arctic Council, because the programme covers both polar zones.

Asked about the main purpose of the activities he carries out at the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre at the University of Coimbra, Xavier said that within his activities as an associate professor, his team strives to understand how the Southern Ocean functions and reacts to various threats. They work with penguins, seals, albatrosses, squid, fish, and the food chain, and they try to understand how these animals adapt to climate change. In the last 25 years, the team has followed the animals' movement to determine where they feed and how they adapt to the changes in climate. Thus far, the common conclusion is that most animals in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean experience difficulties when handling climate change. 

Another aspect of Assoc. Prof. Xavier's research is related to pollution. His team's studies show that microplastics have been found in penguins for the first time: a fact not known until now. This indicates that pollution has entered the marine food chain.

Asked to give an example of cooperation between Bulgarian and Portuguese polar researchers, he said that several research articles were developed in the 2011-2012 period, when he was working with the Bulgarian Antarctic Programme. The first publication was about a method to determine the gender of penguins. They developed a cheap approach to determining the gender of penguins, because male and female individuals differ in their foraging behaviour. The method allows the species' ecology to be studied more accurately.

Another joint publication is about the levels of mercury in the food chain, particularly in animals on Livinston Island. Mercury is highly toxic and accumulates in organisms by passing through the food chain.

Asked how the scientific communities in Bulgaria and Portugal cooperate on Antarctica-related policies, Assoc. Prof. Xavier said they have been working with Bulgaria in that field since 2013. The cooperation is particularly active in the field of education and popularization of scientific research through the Antarctic Treaty. A research article, which is in the process of publication, features many co-authors from Bulgaria and combines the efforts of colleagues from over 20 countries across the globe working within the Antarctic Treaty to underscore the importance of education and popularization towards clarifying the Antarctic Treaty's significance. To make the article, the scientists analyzed not only scientific research but also political documents presented for review within the Antarctic Treaty. The goal was to assess the importance of education. The study showed that the quality of political documents about Antarctica related to education has grown significantly since 2015.

Asked whether people are acquainted enough with the Antarctic Treaty, he told BTA that in 2015, Bulgaria hosted the first seminar on education within the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings. That demonstrated the leading role of Bulgaria in acknowledging the importance of education for explaining the  significance of the Antarctic Treaty at the world level. The research article about to be published analyses the content of these political documents directed at education. The main thing that became evident is that in the last ten years, these documents gradually began to contain more information about the importance of education about Antarctica.

Asked about the way Portuguese scientists carry out their polar studies, Assoc. Prof. Xavier explained that Portugal lacks a permanent base or research ship in Antarctica. Each year, they hire an aircraft to transport scientists, including Bulgarian and other international researchers, to and from Antarctica. Over the past year, they organized the first scientific expedition with a sailing ship, which studied the Antarctic Peninsula. There were many projects related to that. At the same time, Portugal develops cooperation with Spain, Bulgaria, and Chile for the creation of mini-laboratories that would make field analyses possible.

Jose Xavier obtained a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is now an associate professor at the University of Coimbra and an honorary member of the British Antarctic Service with over 25 years of experience in Antarctic research. His work links the ecology of the Southern Ocean with education, popularization, and policies. His publications are included in prestigious editions, such as Nature and Science. He holds the Tinker-Muse Prize for exceptional achievements in science and politicies related to Antarctica.