Collection

Special Issue: Biotically Mediated Nutrient Transfer

Submission status
Closed
In the current era of multi-faceted environmental and climate changes, which often occur at their highest rates in the polar regions, the concept of linkages between the major marine and terrestrial biomes is often raised, encouraged by general reductions in sea ice extent (especially coastal), increased glacial melt and runoff from land to sea carrying sediment and nutrients and locally leading to marine freshening, and changes in oceanographic circulations. This special issue proposal sets out to address a particular facet of these linkages which has to date received fragmented attention – that of the importance and consequences of biotically-mediated nutrient flows between these biomes and in particular within the terrestrial biome. For instance, while features such as the well known ‘bird cliffs’ of the High Arctic plainly illustrate the effect of bird guano fertilisation, remarkably little remains known in detail of how this source of nutrients, or others, enter into or flow through terrestrial food webs or may re-enter and impact the coastal marine environment. Similarly, the role of snow algal communities, whose formation is supported by aeolian, geologically- and biologically-derived deposition of nutrients on glacier and snow surfaces, receives prominence through its effects on albedo and surface melt, but the magnitude and importance of this ecosystem in supplying nutrients to surrounding terrestrial, freshwater and nearshore environments is far less understood. Combining a series of solicited papers and reviews with wider open invitation for submission of primary research papers relating to these matters, this special issue sets out to provide a collation and synthesis of the current state of knowledge of nutrient transfer processes and their impacts in different polar ecosystems and groups of organisms.

Editors

Articles (8 in this collection)