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Glacier retreat alters downstream fjord ecosystem structure and function in Greenland
Lorenz Meire1,2, Maria Lund Paulsen3,4, Patrick Meire5
1Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Estuarine and Delta Systems, Yerseke, the Netherlands.
Abstract:
The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating, with glaciers shifting from marine to land termination and potential consequences for fjord ecosystems downstream. Monthly samples in 2016 in two fjords in southwest Greenland show that subglacial discharge from marine-terminating glaciers sustains high phytoplankton productivity that is dominated by diatoms and grazed by larger mesozooplankton throughout summer. In contrast, melting of land-terminating glaciers results in a fjord ecosystem dominated by bacteria, picophytoplankton and smaller zooplankton, which has only one-third of the annual productivity and half the CO2 uptake compared to the fjord downstream from marine-terminating glaciers.
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