This September, the Faculty of Biology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, will be hosting an international, interdisciplinary conference on cryospheric ecosystems. The forScience Foundation has been asked to lend its patronage to this exciting event.
Now, you might be wondering what our work has to do with the ecosystems of the cryosphere and, at first glance, it might indeed seem like we are a bit out of our depth here. But the forScience team has been working tirelessly to improve the Arctic environment for years. Marine litter stranded along the Arctic coast, which is our main research focus, undergoes gradual degradation and fragmentation. Left unchecked, it becomes a major source of secondary microplastics that travel to the most remote corners of the globe – ocean trenches, mountain peaks, you name it. It is no wonder, therefore, that plastic pollution and its consequences are a hot topic also among researchers studying glaciers and other components of the cryosphere. And this is where the Cryospheric Ecosystems Conference comes in.
Do not think, however, that the event will only be about pollution. The conference will dive into a range of fascinating topics, from biodiversity, ecology and biogeochemistry of glaciers, snow, sea ice and permafrost, through the impact of glaciers on the adjacent systems, such as glacier forefields, streams and seas, to the interactions between the cryosphere and atmosphere.
For more information, including all the relevant dates, forms and links, be sure to check out the official website of the Cryospheric Ecosystems Conference.
And if you’re itching to get a head start on your glacier knowledge (and you don’t mind diving into a few academic papers), we’ve got some reading suggestions for you. What do they all have in common? Glaciers… and Krzysztof Zawierucha, an expert on glacier ecosystems and the chair of the conference’s organizing committee.
Buda, J., Łokas, E., Pietryka, M., Richter, D., Magowski, W., Iakovenko, N., Porazinska, D. L., Budzik, T., Grabiec, M., Grzesiak, J., Klimaszyk, P., Gaca, P., Zawierucha, K. (2020). Biotope and biocenosis of cryoconite hole ecosystems on Ecology Glacier in the maritime Antarctic. Science of the Total Environment, 724, 138112.
Pittino, F., Buda, J., Ambrosini, R., Parolini, M., Crosta, A., Zawierucha, K., Franzetti, A. (2023). Impact of anthropogenic contamination on glacier surface biota. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 80, 102900.
Stibal, M., Bradley, J. A., Edwards, A., Hotaling, S., Zawierucha, K., Rosvold, J., Lutz, S., Cameron, K. A., Mikucki, J. A., Kohler, T. J., Šabacká, M., Anesio, A. M. (2020). Glacial ecosystems are essential to understanding biodiversity responses to glacier retreat. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 4(5), 686-687.
Zawierucha K., Porazinska, D. L., Ficetola, G. F., Ambrosini, R., Baccolo, G., Buda, J., Ceballos, J. L., Devetter, M., Dial, R., Franzetti, A., Fuglewicz, U., Gielly, L., Łokas, E., Janko, K., Novotna Jaromerska, T., Kościński, A., Kozłowska, A., Ono, M., Parnikoza, I., Pittino, F., Poniecka, E., Sommers, P., Schmidt, S. K., Shain, D., Sikorska, S., Uetake, J., Takeuchi, N. (2021). A hole in the nematosphere: tardigrades and rotifers dominate the cryoconite hole environment, whereas nematodes are missing. Journal of Zoology, 313(1), 18-36.