Bicentennial Scientific Antarctic Expedition research team made only land expeditions on their first days on White Continent due to bad weather conditions.

Great quantity of snow, cloudiness and 50 k/h winds stopped Zodiac boats to sail to take samples at Fildes Bay, King George island, near by sites, where Chilean Antarctic Institute Base Professor Julio Escudero is located.

One of the few teams able to go out was the one led by Dr. Ingrid Hebel,from the University of Magallanes associated to Foundation Center of Quaternary Studies (Cequa) and University of Fribourg, Germany, takin samples at the area known as ?elephanters?, across the Sea of Drake.

The three research team studies the moss Sanionia uncinata to know its genetic variability, colonization and adaptation on South Shetland Islands population and compare them with existent information on the same specie but in South America. The molecular genetic analysis of this moss may help to understand other phenomena such as the global climatic change in the development of life in Antarctica. This kind of studies is vein g carried out particularly at the Iced Continent to find out what is going to happen in places where the ice has moved back because of the temperature raise, allowing colonization of plant species.