Arctic Ocean

Microbes use carbon from ancient rocks

Microbial communities in marine sediments are able to use ancient material as a carbon source. Although they prefer fresh organic material, if there is not enough of it, microbes also use carbon from rocks. Since this bacterial metabolism releases greenhouse gases, this process is an additional source of fossil greenhouse gases. This is the result of a study led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, which has now been published in the journal Nature Geosciences. 

Arctic ice algae heavily contaminated with microplastics

The alga Melosira arctica, which grows under Arctic sea ice, contains ten times as many microplastic particles as the surrounding seawater. This concentration at the base of the food web poses a threat to creatures that feed on the algae at the sea surface. Clumps of dead algae also transport the plastic with its pollutants particularly quickly into the deep sea - and can thus explain the high microplastic concentrations in the sediment there. Researchers led by the Alfred Wegener Institute have now reported this in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Debris in the Arctic

Plastic debris in the Arctic comes from all around the world – including Germany

“Citizen Science” gives interested citizens the chance to actively engage in scientific research. A citizen-science project conducted by AWI in the Arctic now shows just how successful this can be. In the course of five years, citizens who went on sailing cruises to the Arctic surveyed and collected plastic debris that had washed up on the shores of Svalbard. This has now been analysed by the AWI.