Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover
Arctic summer sea ice extent is decreasing and thinning, forming melt ponds that cover more than 50% of the sea ice area during the peak of the melting season. Despite of this, ice algal communities in melt ponds are understudied and so are their contribution to the Arctic Ocean primary production a...
Published in: | Frontiers in Marine Science |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720/full |
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crfrontiers:10.3389/fmars.2022.841720 2024-06-23T07:49:21+00:00 Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover Hancke, Kasper Kristiansen, Svein Lund-Hansen, Lars Chresten Norges Forskningsråd Norsk Institutt for Vannforskning Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720/full unknown Frontiers Media SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frontiers in Marine Science volume 9 ISSN 2296-7745 journal-article 2022 crfrontiers https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720 2024-06-04T05:52:30Z Arctic summer sea ice extent is decreasing and thinning, forming melt ponds that cover more than 50% of the sea ice area during the peak of the melting season. Despite of this, ice algal communities in melt ponds are understudied and so are their contribution to the Arctic Ocean primary production and carbon turnover. While melt ponds have been considered as low productive, recent studies suggest that accumulated ice algal potentially facilitate high and yet overlooked rates of carbon turnover. Here we report on ice algal communities forming dense mats not previously described, collected from melt ponds in the northern Barents Sea in July. We document on distinct layered and brown colored mats with high carbon assimilation and net primary production rates compared to ice algal communities and aggregates, in fact comparable to benthic microalgae at temperate tidal flats. Rates of gross and net primary production, as well as community respiration rates were obtained from oxygen micro profiling, and carbon assimilation calculations were supported by 14 C incubations, pigment analysis and light microscopy examinations. The melt pond algal mats consisted of distinct colored layers and differed from aggregates with a consisted layered structure. We accordingly propose the term melt pond algal mats, and further speculate that these dense ice algal mats may provide an important yet overlooked source of organic carbon in the Arctic food-web. A foodweb component likely very sensitive to climate driven changes in the Arctic Ocean and pan-Arctic seas. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Sea ice Frontiers (Publisher) Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Frontiers in Marine Science 9 |
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Frontiers (Publisher) |
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description |
Arctic summer sea ice extent is decreasing and thinning, forming melt ponds that cover more than 50% of the sea ice area during the peak of the melting season. Despite of this, ice algal communities in melt ponds are understudied and so are their contribution to the Arctic Ocean primary production and carbon turnover. While melt ponds have been considered as low productive, recent studies suggest that accumulated ice algal potentially facilitate high and yet overlooked rates of carbon turnover. Here we report on ice algal communities forming dense mats not previously described, collected from melt ponds in the northern Barents Sea in July. We document on distinct layered and brown colored mats with high carbon assimilation and net primary production rates compared to ice algal communities and aggregates, in fact comparable to benthic microalgae at temperate tidal flats. Rates of gross and net primary production, as well as community respiration rates were obtained from oxygen micro profiling, and carbon assimilation calculations were supported by 14 C incubations, pigment analysis and light microscopy examinations. The melt pond algal mats consisted of distinct colored layers and differed from aggregates with a consisted layered structure. We accordingly propose the term melt pond algal mats, and further speculate that these dense ice algal mats may provide an important yet overlooked source of organic carbon in the Arctic food-web. A foodweb component likely very sensitive to climate driven changes in the Arctic Ocean and pan-Arctic seas. |
author2 |
Norges Forskningsråd Norsk Institutt for Vannforskning Horizon 2020 Framework Programme |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Hancke, Kasper Kristiansen, Svein Lund-Hansen, Lars Chresten |
spellingShingle |
Hancke, Kasper Kristiansen, Svein Lund-Hansen, Lars Chresten Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover |
author_facet |
Hancke, Kasper Kristiansen, Svein Lund-Hansen, Lars Chresten |
author_sort |
Hancke, Kasper |
title |
Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover |
title_short |
Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover |
title_full |
Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover |
title_fullStr |
Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover |
title_full_unstemmed |
Highly Productive Ice Algal Mats in Arctic Melt Ponds: Primary Production and Carbon Turnover |
title_sort |
highly productive ice algal mats in arctic melt ponds: primary production and carbon turnover |
publisher |
Frontiers Media SA |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720/full |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Sea ice |
op_source |
Frontiers in Marine Science volume 9 ISSN 2296-7745 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.841720 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Marine Science |
container_volume |
9 |
_version_ |
1802639738797031424 |