CR
Cryospheric Sciences

ecology

Small step for reindeer – large leap for humankind?

September 22, 2023
Photo of a reindeer looking for food on the snow.
Fig 1 – A reindeer digging through snow to find food. [Credit: T. Windirsch]

Since several decades, there’s a lot of discussion in the permafrost ecosystem community on “rewilding” and “return to a natural state” in order to protect ecosystems and to reduce the impacts of climate change. Reindeer and other herbivores influence the insulation regime of the ground and could thereby preserve the frozen state of permafrost ground. Is there a way to utilise this effect to our b ...[Read More]

It’s getting hot in here: Ancient microbes in thawing permafrost

October 22, 2021
It’s getting hot in here: Ancient microbes in thawing permafrost
Figure 1: You wondered what can live in frozen, ancient soil? Here you can see intact (A) and thawing permafrost (B). While Bacilli (red) and spore formers (green) can survive in the frozen and thawed permafrost, other species, such as Actinobacteria (blue) do not like it too much when it thaws. Carbon gets digested into carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), of which most is released into the atmosphere. Little is known about fungi (light brown) but they do exist. [Credit: Maria Scheel, created with biorender.com]

Did you know that the oldest organism on Earth is believed to be a microorganism found in 3-million-year-old permafrost in Siberia? There, it was living at a cosy average temperature of -10 °C at 14 m depth. Or did you hear that some other Arctic soil microorganisms can happily live at extreme temperatures down to -40 °C? Scientists often use these “extreme” microorganisms to get an idea on how ex ...[Read More]