The glaciers of the Arctic are filled with life. Free Technical Library News

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The glaciers of the Arctic are filled with life

04.06.2023

A new study has proven that the Arctic ice is not at all as lifeless as it might seem at first glance.

It may seem that the glaciers of the Arctic are completely devoid of life, but scientists assure that this is not at all the case. In fact, the ice and snow carpets in Greenland and Iceland are literally filled with microscopic life forms.

Moreover, like seasonal zombies, many of these organisms hibernate and wake up from a frosty sleep with the onset of summer and the melting of glaciers. According to a microbiologist at the University of Aarhus in Sweden, Alexander Anesio, even in a small pool of glacier meltwater, almost 4 different species can easily be awake.

The researchers note that for the most part, these microscopic organisms thrive on bacteria, algae, viruses, and microscopic fungi. In fact, they are a whole ecosystem, the existence of which the researchers knew nothing about for a long time.

That all changed when scientists studied ice and snow on two glaciers in mid-to-late summer, one in Iceland and the other in Greenland. Most of the bacteria discovered by scientists were active, others did not move or were dead. But what was interesting was that the scientists found that a day after being thawed, some of these “dormant microbes” revived and regained the ability to read genes and produce the building blocks of amino acids. The results of the study indicate that after three days of thawing in the laboratory, the samples contained 35% more active microbes.

The data obtained by the researchers suggest that the microbial communities in snow and ice can indeed quickly respond to melting. Adapting to climate change is generally considered very beneficial, Anesio said, but it also means that a sudden change in one organism can destabilize an entire ecosystem.

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