Sentences with phrase «ice algae»
"Ice algae" refers to microscopic plants that live in icy environments, like the Arctic or Antarctic. They grow on or within ice and are an important source of food for other organisms in these cold regions. Full definition
Last year the researchers successfully confirmed the importance of ice algae as a food source for animal species primarily found in deeper waters.
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These include Arctic cod and capelin, while krill and Calanus finmarchicus are replaced by Arctic amphipoda (another group of crustacean zooplankton), which live on ice algae which are also absent from Atlantic water.
In fact, the outcomes indicate that between 50 and 90 per cent of the young polar cod's carbon stems from ice algae.
The new study quantitatively assessed how surface ice algae contribute to darkening of the ice sheet, and found the algae reduce the ice sheet's albedo significantly more than non-algal materials, like mineral particles and black carbon.
«As for the Antarctic, satellites only provide part of the answer regarding ice algae and phytoplankton blooms.»
With less sea ice many marine ecosystems will experience more light, which can accelerate the growth of phytoplankton, and shift the balance between the primary production by ice algae and water - borne phytoplankton, with implications for Arctic food webs.
Surface ice algae produce dark pigments to protect themselves from high intensity radiation, further darkening the sheet surface, Stibal said.
At least four key findings from these projects relating to arctic heterotrophic food web, pelagic - benthic coupling and biodiversity have emerged: (1) Contrary to a long - standing paradigm of dormant ecosystems during the long arctic winter, major food web components showed relatively high level of winter activity, well before the spring release of ice algae and subsequent phytoplankton bloom.
Under the ice of the central Arctic, the juvenile fish are indirectly but heavily dependent on ice algae.
My research has a particular focus on primary producers in the Arctic marine ice - covered ecosystem, which include sea ice algae, ice melt water (brackish) flora and phytoplankton.
Now, the robot's first findings are already helping scientists piece together more of this previously hidden under - ice food web, including more evidence of the under - ice algae, as well as tiny copepods, ctenophores (jellyfish), predatory marine worms called arrow worms, and abundant amounts of large floating slime balls, known to scientists as larvaceans.
The ice algae seem to be one of the major players in this scheme — even the slight increase of the atmospheric temperature and liquid water production seems to promote algae colonization across the ice surface.
Only in the past few years have scientists begun to realize that some of the dark particles on the ice sheet are in fact these ice algae and not soot, Benning says.
«Even though we had assumed there was a connection between the ice algae and polar cod from the outset of the study, these high values surprised us.»
As such, there is a direct relation between the polar cod and the ice algae, which could ultimately threaten the young polar cod's survival.
«When we find the fatty acids from the ice algae in the meat or tissues of a fish, it tells us the fish or its prey must have fed on the algae,» says Kohlbach.
«Generally speaking, our findings indicate that polar cod are heavily dependent on ice algae,» says first author and AWI biologist Doreen Kohlbach.
In a second step, the researchers confirmed the presence of carbon from the ice algae in the fish.
«When the sea ice melts, juvenile polar cod may go hungry: Biologists confirm how heavily the fish depend on ice algae.»
During their journey, the young polar cod feed on amphipod crustaceans, which in turn feed on ice algae.
Williamson is part of a five - year project investigating the impact of ice algae, which is different than snow algae, and bacteria on the Greenland ice sheet (SN: 5/20/00, p. 328).
«Yet our biomarker data show acceptable living conditions for phytoplankton and sea ice algae, namely open waters and seasonal ice cover — a wide difference to kilometre - thick ice,» says Rüdiger Stein.
Another study provided the key: a fatty biomarker called IPSO25 that was only found in a particular species of sea - ice algae, Berkeleya adeliensis.
There, he's studying both bacteria and ice algae — which are different than snow algae.
My most recent endeavours include: biological oceanographic studies of the central Canadian Arctic, Canadian Beaufort Sea (investigating phytoplankton bloom dynamics, sea ice bio-optics and ice algal productivity, photophysiology and taxonomy) and Hudson Bay (investigating freshwater and dissolved organic carbon input and export), and biophysical modeling of the ice algae ecosystem.
4 Lipids and fatty acids in ice algae and phytoplankton from the Marginal Ice Zone in the Barents Sea.
However, should these changes involve extinction of key species — such as polar bears, walruses, ice - dependent seals and more than 1,000 species of ice algae — the changes could represent a point of no return.»
The edge of the ice shelf is a feast for many species due to ice algae and phytoplankton that appear there at the end of winter.
The ice is an important factor in the strength of the spring phytoplankton bloom and for the growth of ice algae, which are both important food sources for krill, which in turn are the main food source for the region's penguins, whales and seals.