New paper published in Nature Geoscience

Glaciers are rapidly retreating from the roof of our planet, yet the consequences of this world-wide phenomenon on glacier-fed stream biogeochemical cycling has not been explored.

In a new paper published today in Nature Geoscience, we explored differences in carbon and nutrients across the world’s glacier-fed streams, compared this with the needs and acquisition effort of the resident microorganisms, and investigated how both of these might change as glaciers continue to shrink in the future.

We found that a “Green New World” is emerging. Glacier shrinkage leads to clearer and warmer streams, encouraging greater algal growth. This in turn increases biological demand for nutrients, while simultaneously contributing organic carbon to a carbon-limited system. Collectively, this transition will have large implications for biogeochemical cycles in these ecosystems globally, with still unknown consequences for the resident communities.

Read more here and here and here.