Algal Mats May Be a Key to the Arctic Food Web

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https://eos.org/articles/algal-mats-may-be-a-key-to-the-arctic-food-web

By Fanni Daniella Szakal, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: The underside of sea ice in the Arctic is almost like the seafloor turned upside down—and covered with a biofilm of microorganisms and algae. As sea ice melts during the summer and forms melt ponds on its surface, some of the algae find their way into the ponds and the cracks between the ice, forming buoyant little mats on the surface. A recent study published in Frontiers in Marine Science showed that these mats have very high photosynthetic activity, suggesting that they might be an important, underexplored element of the Arctic food web. ...“The polar bears are only there because there is food for them somehow,” explained lead author Kasper Hancke, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research. “What they eat also needs to eat something that needs to eat something, and everything starts from the algae.” ...The Arctic is warming at a rate 2–4 times faster than the global average, resulting in thinning and disappearing ice, with melt ponds currently covering as much as 60% of sea ice area during the summer months. “There is clear evidence that there are more and more melt ponds, which means that the habitat for these ice algae mats might be increasing,” said Hancke. “They could potentially be more important in the future with global warming.”.…

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