Dynamics of 'Glacier Blood' microbial ecosystems in the European Alps

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Mountain environments are home to extremophilicterrestrial microalgae that become loaded with pigments toprotect them from strong light conditions. The red stainingof snow and ice surfaces characteristic of such microbialactivity (known as 'glacier blood') is now noticeably morefrequent and widespread at high altitudes globally and isevidence that warming is impacting mountain ecology atthe most fundamental of levels. Although algae residingwithin the surface of high-latitude ice masses are now well-known to play globally significant roles in biogeochemicalcycling and ice-albedo feedbacks, the distribution, diversity,and function of algal communities specific to alpine regionshas been poorly studied, meaning little is understoodregarding their origin and dynamics, means of production,and impact on carbon cycling and glacier melt.Objectives1. Apply Earth Observation tools to quantify algal spatialand temporal dynamics on snow and ice surfaces2. Undertake field sampling of snow and ice surfaces andmelt products3. Apply metagenomic and metaproteomic analyses tosamples to elucidate ecosystem composition and function4. Quantify the sources and fluxes of carbon at thecatchment scale and the contribution from snow- and ice-surface ecosystemsNovelty & timelinessAlgae affect and are affected by environmental warmingand expansion of algal communities at high elevation haspotentially destablising consequences for mountainecosystems and ice bodies. This project will couple EarthObservation approaches that will quantify algal communityexpansion at the Alpine scale with plot- and catchment-level sampling to enable: (a) metagenomic andmetaproteomic analyses that will establish microbialcommunity composition, processes and metabolicpathways; and (b) carbon quality and carbon isotopeanalysis that will quantify carbon fluxes from biological andgeological sources. This novel suite of methods aims toprovide unique insight into algal community functioning anddynamics and their role in biogeochemical processes thatsequester atmospheric CO2.