Metazoan fauna of cryoconite holes in high arctic glaciers of Svalbard, ecological features

• Main Author: Lucadello, Margherita
• Other Authors: Castilho, Rita, Devetter, Miloslav, Šabacká, Marie
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Glaciares de Svalbard; Furos de crioconita; Tardígrados; Rotíferos; Ecologia; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Naturais::Ciências Biológicas; Arctic; Svalbard; albedo; glacier
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/12544

Cryoconite holes are small habitats found on the ablation zone of glacier surfaces worldwide. They are created when dust (a mixture of inorganic and organic particles, including microorganism), mainly windblown on the glacier, absorbs more solar radiation then the surrounding ice due to a lower albedo. The heating makes the ice melting underneath and the sediments sinking into the hole of melted water. This study aims to understand the interactions between the metazoans presents in cryoconite holes and their interaction with the environment. From June 2017 to August 2017, 150 cryoconite holes from nine different glaciers from three different areas were sampled for this research. Multivariate and univariate statistic was run to understand the impact of the variables driving the presence and abundance of the metazoans in the Svalbard’s cryoconite holes: geographic variables (latitude, lon-gitude, elevation, glacier type), structural variables (structure of the cryoconite hole as area and depth), biological variables (presence and abundance of metazoan in cryoconites), seasonal variables (impact of the sampling time on parameters of the samples) and environmental variables (bird’s pres-ence, area’s features as sediment input or flows of melted water, and weather conditions of the sam-pling period). The variables were tested for significant differences between the nine glaciers and the three areas, and the outcomes discussed. Dependency levels and interconnected impacts of these bi-otic and abiotic variables were hypothesized. From the analyses of the results, environmental varia-bles, seasonal variability and biological variables are proposed as most critical controls with different levels of dependency. Instead, cryoconite holes structural variables and the geographical variables are proposed to do not have an impact as a driver of the presence and abundance of the metazoan populations of cryoconite holes. Os buracos de crioconita são pequenos habitats que se encontram na zona de ablação das superfícies ...