Search

Glacier and ice sheet surfaces host diverse communities of microorganisms whose activity (or inactivity) influences biogeochemical cycles and ice melting. Supraglacial microbes endure various environmental extremes including resource scarcity, frequent temperature fluctuations above and below the freezing point of water, and high UV irradiance during summer followed by months of total darkness during winter. One strategy that enables microbial life to persist through environmental extremes is dormancy, which despite being prevalent among microbial communities in natural settings, has not been directly measured and quantified in glacier surface ecosystems. Here, we use a combination of metabarcoding and metatranscriptomic analyses, as well as cell‐specific activity (BONCAT) incubations to assess the diversity and activity of microbial communities from glacial surfaces in Iceland and Greenland. We also present a new ecological model for glacier microorganisms and simulate physiological state‐changes in the glacial microbial community under idealized (i) freezing, (ii) thawing, and (iii) freeze–thaw conditions. We show that a high proportion (>50%) of bacterial cells are translationally active in‐situ on snow and ice surfaces, with Actinomycetota, Pseudomonadota, and Planctomycetota dominating the total and active community compositions, and that glacier microorganisms, even when frozen, could resume translational activity within 24 h after thawing. Our data suggest that glacial microorganisms respond rapidly to dynamic and changing conditions typical of their natural environment. We deduce that the biology and biogeochemistry of glacier surfaces are shaped by processes occurring over short (i.e., daily) timescales, and thus are susceptible to change following the expected alterations to the melt‐regime of glaciers driven by climate change. A better understanding of the activity of microorganisms on glacier surfaces is critical in addressing the growing concern of climate change in Polar regions, as well as for their use as analogues to life in potentially habitable icy worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryoconite holes are known as foci of microbial diversity and activity on polar glacier surfaces, but are virtually unexplored microbial habitats in alpine regions. In addition, whether cryoconite community structure reflects ecosystem functionality is poorly understood. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and Fourier transform infrared metabolite fingerprinting of cryoconite from glaciers in Austria, Greenland and Svalbard demonstrated cryoconite bacterial communities are closely correlated with cognate metabolite fingerprints. The influence of bacterial-associated fatty acids and polysaccharides was inferred, underlining the importance of bacterial community structure in the properties of cryoconite. Thus, combined application of T-RFLP and FT- IR metabolite fingerprinting promises high throughput, and hence, rapid assessment of community structure-function relationships. Pyrosequencing revealed Proteobacteria were particularly abundant, with Cyanobacteria likely acting as ecosystem engineers in both alpine and Arctic cryoconite communities. However, despite these generalities, significant differences in bacterial community structures, compositions and metabolomes are found between alpine and Arctic cryoconite habitats, reflecting the impact of local and regional conditions on the challenges of thriving in glacial ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tundra is the coldest biome described in typical geography and biology textbooks. Within the cryosphere, there are large expanses of ice in the Antarctic, Arctic and alpine regions that are not regarded as being part of any biome. During the summer, there is significant melt on the surface of glaciers, ice caps and ice shelves, at which point microbial communities become active and play an important role in the cycling of carbon and other elements within the cryosphere. In this review, we suggest that it is time to recognise the cryosphere as one of the biomes of Earth. The cryospheric biome encompasses extreme environments and is typified by truncated food webs dominated by viruses, bacteria, protozoa and algae with distinct biogeographical structures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The diversity of highly active bacterial communities in cryoconite holes on three Arctic glaciers in Svalbard was investigated using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) of the 16S rRNA locus. Construction and sequencing of clone libraries allowed several members of these communities to be identified, with Proteobacteria being the dominant one, followed by Cyanobacteria and Bacteroidetes. T-RFLP data revealed significantly different communities in holes on the (cold) valley glacier Austre Brøggerbreen relative to two adjacent (polythermal) valley glaciers, Midtre Lovénbreen and Vestre Brøggerbreen. These population compositions correlate with differences in organic matter content, temperature and the metabolic activity of microbial communities concerned. No within-glacier spatial patterns were observed in the communities identified over the 2-year period and with the 1 km-spaced sampling. We infer that surface hydrology is an important factor in the development of cryoconite bacterial communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now compelling evidence that microbially mediated reactions impart a significant effect upon the dynamics, composition, and abundance of nutrients in glacial melt water. Consequently, we must now consider ice masses as ecosystem habitats in their own right and address their diversity, functional potential, and activity as part of alpine and polar environments. Although such research is already underway, its fragmentary nature provides little basis for developing modern concepts of glacier ecology. This paper therefore provides a much-needed framework for development by reviewing the physical, biogeochemical, and microbiological characteristics of microbial habitats that have been identified within glaciers and ice sheets. Two key glacial ecosystems emerge, one inhabiting the glacier surface (the supraglacial ecosystem) and one at the ice-bed interface (the subglacial ecosystem). The supraglacial ecosystem is characterized by a diverse consortium of microbes (usually bacteria, algae, phytoflagellates, fungi, viruses and occasional rotifers, tardigrades, and diatoms) within the snowpack, supraglacial streams, and melt pools (cryoconite holes). The subglacial system is dominated by aerobic/anaerobic bacteria and most probably viruses in basal ice/till mixtures and subglacial lakes. A third, so-called englacial ecosystem is also described, but it is demonstrated that conditions within glacier ice are sufficient to make metabolic activity and its impact upon nutrient dynamics negligible at the glacier scale. Consideration of the surface and internal heat balances of the glacier show that all glacial ecosystems are sensitive to climate change, although at different timescales. Thus, while rapid, melt-driven habitat changes lead to melt-out, resuscitation, and redistribution of microorganisms in many supraglacial ecosystems, much slower climatic and glacial mass-balance processes effect such changes in the subglacial ecosystem. Paradoxically, it is shown that these forces have brought about net refreezing and the onset of cryostasis in the subglacial ecosystems of many Arctic glaciers subject to thinning in recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global cryosphere, Earth's frozen water, is in precipitous decline. The ongoing and predicted impacts of cryosphere loss are diverse, ranging from disappearance of entire biomes to crises of water availability. Covering approximately one-fifth of the planet, mass loss from the terrestrial cryosphere is driven primarily by a warming atmosphere but reductions in albedo (the proportion of reflected light) also contribute by increasing absorption of solar radiation. In addition to dust and other abiotic impurities, biological communities substantially reduce albedo worldwide. In this review, we provide a global synthesis of biological albedo reduction (BAR) in terrestrial snow and ice ecosystems. We first focus on known drivers—algal blooms and cryoconite (granular sediment on the ice that includes both mineral and biological material)—as they account for much of the biological albedo variability in snow and ice habitats. We then consider an array of potential drivers of BAR whose impacts may be overlooked, such as arthropod deposition, resident organisms (e.g., dark-bodied glacier ice worms), and larger vertebrates, including humans, that transiently visit the cryosphere. We consider both primary (e.g., BAR due to the presence of pigmented algal cells) and indirect (e.g., nutrient addition from arthropod deposition) effects, as well as interactions among biological groups (e.g., birds feeding on ice worms). Collectively, we highlight that in many cases, overlooked drivers and interactions among factors have considerable potential to alter BAR, perhaps rivaling the direct effects of algal blooms and cryoconite. We conclude by highlighting knowledge gaps for the field with an emphasis on the underrepresentation of genomic tools, understudied areas (particularly high-elevation glaciers at tropical latitudes), and a dearth of temporal sampling in current efforts. We detail a global framework for long-term BAR monitoring that, if implemented, would yield a tremendous amount of insight for BAR and would be particularly valuable in light of the rapid ecological and physical changes occurring in the contemporary cryosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]