The Terrestrial Macroinvertebrates of the Sub-Antarctic Iles Kerguelen and Ile de la Possession. Maurice Hulle

      The belief in a southern land as a counterbalance and necessary symmetry of the northern hemisphere is ancient. Eighteenth-Century scholars pushed to discover this southern continent and provoked some great exploratory expeditions. Commercial companies such as the “Compagnie des Indes” also encouraged these expeditions to search for havens other than Île de France (Mauritius) on the way to India, as well as to the Atlantic. Jean-Baptiste Bouvet-Lozier, Marc-Joseph Marion-Dufresne and Julien Crozet were captains of the “Compagnie des Indes”, while Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen were officers in the service of the King of France.

      The French sub-Antarctic islands were discovered in 1772 during these expeditions: the Îles Crozet by Marc-Joseph Marion-Dufresne and Julien Crozet, who landed on Île de la Possession at Crique du Navire and the Îles Kerguelen by Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen (this is Charles de Boisguehenneuc, the second captain, who took possession of the island at Anse du Gros-Ventre).

      All these islands were revisited four years later by James Cook who spent Christmas 1776 in Port-Christmas in the North of Kerguelen. On this occasion, they described Kerguelen’s cabbage, Pringlea antiscorbutica, thus producing what was probably the first scientific publication concerning these islands. Cook published his voyage in 1784, which made the positions and descriptions of the islands known and led very quickly, as early as 1792, to the first American whaling and sealing expeditions (Delépine 1995).

The 19th Century was one of intensive exploitation of marine mammals and seabirds, with more than 1,200,000 sea lions slaughtered for their oil, as well as whales, sea furs and penguins (Basberg and Headland 2008). The number of ships was extremely important: up to 700 per year according to James Clark Ross, who visited the islands in 1840 (Ross 1847).

      France again took possession of the Îles Kerguelen in 1893 and therefore had to ensure a permanent presence on the islands. The country gave a concession to René Emile Bossière and his brother Henry Bossière for 50 years. The two brothers developed several projects such as a whaling factory in Port-Jeanne-d’Arc (1908–1926) and a sheep farm in Port-Couvreux (a first period in 1913 but stopped by World War I and a second period between 1922 and 1931). On this occasion, they introduced forage plants along with a predatory insect, Merizodus soledadinus. The French state also took possession of the Îles Crozet in 1931.

      Several military ships frequented the southern islands during World War II. Some wrecks and cemeteries still bear witness to this.

      The first permanent bases were installed in 1950 on the Îles Kerguelen (Port-aux-Français, Grande Terre) and 1963 on Île de la Possession (Base Alfred-Faure). These bases regularly host between 25 and 50 people in base Alfred-Faure and from 50 to 100 in Port-aux-Français. Bases are refueled by boat four times a year and are also visited by fishing boats several times a year. Boat is the only means of access. In addition to the technical, military and scientific staff, it brings 60 tourists every year who enjoy the trip but who do not stay on the islands except during the stopovers.

1.4. Natural history and history of species discovery

      Our current knowledge of native and introduced invertebrate species is based on the first scientific expeditions that took place in the second half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century (Box 1.1) and on the scientific programs that were initiated after the bases were settled.

      The first species were brought back by the expeditions of the Erebus and the Terror in 1843, and the first descriptions were the weevil Ectemnorhinus viridis and the snail Notodiskus hookeri in 1853 and 1854, respectively.

Thirty years later, the very successful expedition of the Challenger allowed the description of 14 new species, mainly Diptera by Alfred Edwin Eaton and weevils by Charles Owen Waterhouse. At the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, the expeditions of Valdivia (1898) and Gauss (1902) allowed the description of 18 new species, particularly by Günther Enderlein who described 15 native species including two moths of the genus Pringleophaga. The pre-war expeditions of Edgar and Andrée Aubert de la Rüe and René Jeannel allowed the description of spiders by Vernon Hickman and weevils by René Jeannel.

      Thus, the discovery of 66 native species occurred over 140 years, from 1854 to 1994 (Figures 1.14 and 1.15).

      Figure 1.14. Date and cumulated number of native species’ first description (cumulative data for the Îles Kerguelen and Île de la Possession)

      More curiously, a few alien species have also been described from specimens found on the islands, even though these species may be common in their areas of origin. This was the case, for example, of the ant Camponotus werthi discovered by Emil Werth in 1902 (Deutsche Südpolar Expedition) and described by Auguste Forel (1908). This ant came from Cape Town in South Africa. Similarly, the book louse, Rhyopsocus eclipticus, described by Hermann August Hagen (1876), was discovered in Baie de l’Observatoire (Kerguelen) by the American expedition coming from Washington (USA), to observe the transit of Venus in 1874. It was probably introduced with the packing straws used on board the Swatara to protect the optical material. Similarly, the genus Limnophyes was created by Alfred Edwin Eaton in 1875 to describe the species L. pusillus, which was later renamed L. minimus, previously described by Johann Wilheim Meigen in 1818.

The 19th Century was the century of several important scientific expeditions. Scientists and hunters have come together for more than 150 years. The main scientific expeditions were as follows (Headland 1989; Delépine 1995):

      1839–1843: the Erebus and the Terror commanded by James Clark Ross and Francis Crozier. Their main mission was the search for the magnetic pole, but naturalists like Robert McCormick, Joseph Dalton Hooker and David Lyall were also on board.

      1874: the Challenger commanded by Georges Nares and whose chief scientist was Charles Wyville Thomson, a marine biologist, accompanied by the naturalists and zoologists John Murray, Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm and Henry Nottidge Moseley.

      1874: the Volage, the Supply, the Swatara, the Gazelle and the Monongahela to observe the transit of Venus. The astronomer Stephen Joseph Perry and the entomologist Alfred Edwin Eaton were present. These expeditions did not have only positive consequences since the first rabbits were released on Grande Terre (Îles Kerguelen) by the people aboard the Volage and the first dandelion seeds sown by those aboard the Swatara to provide food. This was the source of the first ecological disasters.

      1898–1899: the Valdivia with the oceanographer Carl Chun as expedition leader, the botanist Wilhelm Schimper and the zoologist Ernst Vanhöffen on board.

      1901–1903: the Gauss and the Tanglin with the geologist Erich von Drygalski as the outstanding “Deutsche Südpolar Expedition” leader. His goal was the Antarctic, but he organized a one-year stay on Kerguelen for five people including the scientists Emil Werth, Josef Ezensperger and Karl Luyken, and Ernst Vanhöffen was also on board.

      1908–1909 and 1913–1914: the J.B Charcot and then the Curieuse led by brothers Raymond and Henri Rallier du Baty who drew the first good map of the interior of Kerguelen and made many observations of the flora and the fauna.

      1924: the Oural with Etienne Peau, curator of Le Havre National History Museum, at Îles Kerguelen.

      1928, 1931, 1949 and 1952: with Edgar and Andrée Aubert de la Rüe who came several times, essentially for geological studies.

      1929–1931: the Discovery stopped at the Îles Crozet, the Îles Kerguelen and Heard Island before continuing south to Antarctica. This British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) was under the command of Douglas Mawson.

      1938–1939: the Bougainville