Search results for "Arctic"
showing 10 items of 565 documents
Bacterial Diversity in a Dynamic and Extreme Sub-Arctic Watercourse (Pasvik River, Norwegian Arctic)
2020
Microbial communities promptly respond to the environmental perturbations, especially in the Arctic and sub-Arctic systems that are highly impacted by climate change, and fluctuations in the diversity level of microbial assemblages could give insights on their expected response. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing was applied to describe the bacterial community composition in water and sediment through the sub-Arctic Pasvik River. Our results showed that river water and sediment harbored distinct communities in terms of diversity and composition at genus level. The distribution of the bacterial communities was mainly affected by both salinity and temperature in sediment samples, and by oxygen…
High-resolution orthophoto map and digital surface models of the largest Argentine Islands (the Antarctic) from unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry
2020
This study presents the first high-resolution orthophoto maps and digital surface models (DSMs) of the largest Argentine Islands, West Antarctica. Aerial surveys with small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) were performed in Austral summer, 2018, taking 10,041 aerial photographs. Accuracy requirements were ensured using ground control points (GCPs). A resolution of 3.4 and 6.8 cm/px of orthomosaics and DSMs is reached on average, and the RMS reprojection error is 0.22 m on average. We report the morphometric parameters of surveyed islands and discuss issues related to accuracy and the usage of UAVs in polar conditions. This study demonstrates that small and low cost UAVs can be successfully use…
Biodiversity of Antarctic echinoids: a comprehensive and interactive database
2005
Eighty-one echinoid species are present south of the Antarctic Convergence, and they represent an important component of the benthic fauna. “Antarctic echinoids” is an interactive database synthesising the results of more than 100 years of Antarctic expeditions, and comprising information about all echinoid species. It includes illustrated keys for determination of the species, and information about their morphology and ecology (text, illustrations and glossary) and their distribution (maps and histograms of bathymetrical distribution); the sources of the information (bibliography, collections and expeditions) are also provided. All these data (taxonomic, morphologic, geographic, bathymetri…
Terrestrial Inputs Drive Seasonality in Organic Matter and Nutrient Biogeochemistry in a High Arctic Fjord System (Isfjorden, Svalbard)
2020
Climate-change driven increases in temperature and precipitation are leading to increased discharge of freshwater and terrestrial material to Arctic coastal ecosystems. These inputs bring sediments, nutrients and organic matter (OM) across the land-ocean interface with a range of implications for coastal ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling. To investigate responses to terrestrial inputs, physicochemical conditions were characterized in a river- and glacier-influenced Arctic fjord system (Isfjorden, Svalbard) from May to August in 2018 and 2019. Our observations revealed a pervasive freshwater footprint in the inner fjord arms, the geochemical properties of which varied spatially and seaso…
Recent changes in chironomid communities and hypolimnetic oxygen conditions relate to organic carbon in subarctic ecotonal lakes
2018
A key question in aquatic elemental cycling is related to the influence of bottom water oxygen conditions in regulating the burial and release of carbon under climate warming. In this study, we used head capsules of Chironomidae larvae to assess community and diversity change between the past (estimated as Pre-Industrial Period) and present and to reconstruct changes in hypolimnetic oxygen conditions from 30 subarctic ecotonal lakes (northeastern Lapland) using the top-bottom paleolimnological approach applying surface sediment (topmost 0-2 cm) and reference (4-5 cm) samples. Subsequently, we tested the findings against dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration of the sites. We found tha…
Carbon dynamics in highly heterotrophic subarctic thaw ponds
2015
Abstract. Global warming has accelerated the formation of permafrost thaw ponds in several subarctic and arctic regions. These ponds are net heterotrophic as evidenced by their greenhouse gas (GHG) supersaturation levels (CO2 and CH4), and generally receive large terrestrial carbon inputs from the thawing and eroding permafrost. We measured seasonal and vertical variations in the concentration and type of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in five subarctic thaw (thermokarst) ponds in northern Quebec, and explored how environmental gradients influenced heterotrophic and phototrophic biomass and productivity. Late winter DOM had low aromaticity indicating reduced inputs of terrestrial carbon, wh…
Biogenic Fenton process - A possible mechanism for the mineralization of organic carbon in fresh waters.
2020
To explore the mechanisms that mineralize poorly bioavailable natural organic carbon (OC), we measured the mineralization of OC in two lake waters over long-term experiments (up to 623 days) at different pH and iron (Fe) levels. Both the microbial and photochemical mineralization of OC was higher at pH acidified to 4 than at the ambient pH 5 or an elevated pH 6. During 244 days, microbes mineralized up to 60% of OC in the 10-mu m filtrates of lake water and more than 27% in the 1-mu m filtrates indicating that large-sized microbes/grazers enhance the mineralization of OC. A reactivity continuum model indicated that the acidification stimulated the microbial mineralization of OC especially i…
Norway-Russia disaster diplomacy for Svalbard
2020
Abstract The Arctic is frequently framed as a region of disaster and conflict, as well as of opportunity and cooperation. Disaster diplomacy is one approach for examining how dealing with disasters might or might not affect conflict and cooperation, yet little work on Arctic disaster diplomacy has been completed, especially regarding specific bilateral relations. This paper contributes to filling in this gap by focusing on the post-USSR era to provide the first examination of the prospects and relevance of Norway-Russia disaster-related interaction for the Svalbard archipelago. As a discussion paper focusing on one case study, Norway-Russia disaster diplomacy is analysed in the context of S…
Data from: Grazing decreases N partitioning among coexisting plant species
2018
1. Herbivores play a key role in shaping ecosystem structure and functions by influencing plant and microbial community composition and nutrient cycling. 2. This study investigated the long-term effects of herbivores on plant resource acquisition. We explored differences in the natural δ15N signatures in plant, microbial and soil N pools, and examined mycorrhizal colonization in two tundra sites that have been either lightly or heavily grazed by reindeer for more than 50 years. The study examined changes in nutrient acquisition in five common tundra plants with contrasting traits and mycorrhiza status; the mycorrhizal dwarf shrubs, Betula nana, Vaccinium myrtillus and Empetrum hermaphroditu…
Immune Modulating Effects of NKT Cells in a Physiologically Low Dose Leishmania major Infection Model after αGalCer Analog PBS57 Stimulation
2014
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection affecting ∼12 million people worldwide, mostly in developing countries. Treatment options are limited and no effective vaccines exist to date. Natural Killer T (NKT) cells are a conserved innate-like lymphocyte population with immunomodulating effects in various settings. A number of reports state a role of NKT cells in different models of Leishmania infection. Here, we investigated the effect of NKT cells in a physiologically relevant, intradermal low dose infection model. After inoculation of 103 infectious-stage L. major, comparable numbers of skin-immigrating NKT cells in both susceptible BALB/c mice and resistant C57BL/6 mice were noted. Compared …