Sympagic ecology

Short description: Ecology of ice and snow

ROV image of krill grazing under the ice. In this image most krill swim in an upside down position directly under the ice. Only one animal (in the middle) is hovering in the open water.

A sympagic environment is one where water exists mostly as a solid, ice, such as a polar ice cap or glacier. Solid sea ice is permeated with channels filled with salty brine. These briny channels and the sea ice itself have its ecology, referred to as "sympagic ecology".

Residents of temperate or tropical climates often assume, mistakenly, that ice and snow are devoid of life. In fact, a number of varieties of algae such as diatoms engage in photosynthesis in arctic and alpine regions of Earth. Other energy sources include Aeolian dust and pollen swept in from other regions. These ecosystems also include bacteria and fungi, as well as animals like flatworms and crustaceans. A number of sympagic worm species are commonly called ice worms.

Additionally, the ocean has abundant plankton, and prolific algal blooms occur in the polar regions each summer as well as in high mountain lakes, bringing nutrients to those parts of the ice in contact with the water. In the Arctic Ocean, ice algae accounts for close to half of the primary production during the summer months.[1] In the spring, krill can scrape off the green lawn of ice algae from the underside of the pack ice.

## Contents

* 1 Endemic species in the Arctic
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## Endemic species in the Arctic

The Arctic sea ice and its related biota are unique, and the year-round persistence of the ice has allowed the development of ice endemic species. The specialized sympagic community within the sea ice is found in the tiny liquid filled network of pores and brine channels or at the ice-water interface. The organisms living within the sea ice are consequently small (<1mm), and dominated by bacteria, and unicellular plants and animals.

Diatoms are considered the most important primary producers inside the ice with more than 200 species occurring in Arctic sea ice.[2] In addition, flagellates contribute to biodiversity.[3] Protozoan and metazoan ice meiofauna, in particular turbellarians, nematodes, crustaceans and rotifers, can be abundant in all ice types year-round. In spring, larvae and juveniles of benthic animals (e.g. polychaetes and molluscs) migrate into coastal fast ice to feed on the ice algae for a few weeks.[4]

A partially endemic fauna, comprising mainly gammaridean amphipods, thrives at the underside of ice floes. Locally and seasonally occurring at several hundred individuals per square meter, they are important mediators for particulate organic matter from the sea ice to the water column.[5] Ice-associated and pelagic crustaceans are the major food sources for polar cod (Boreogadus saida) that occurs in close association with sea ice and acts as the major link from the ice-related food web to seals and whales.

While previous studies of coastal and offshore sea ice provided a glimpse of the seasonal and regional abundances and the diversity of the ice-associated biota, biodiversity in these communities is virtually unknown for all groups, from bacteria to metazoans. Many taxa are likely still undiscovered due to the methodological problems in analyzing ice samples.[6] The study of diversity of ice related environments is urgently required before they ultimately change with altering ice regimes and the likely loss of the multi-year ice cover.[7]

## See also

* Polar ecology
* Polynya

## References

1. ↑ Ehrlich, Julia; Schaafsma, Fokje L.; Bluhm, Bodil A.; Peeken, Ilka; Castellani, Giulia; Brandt, Angelika; Flores, Hauke (2020). "Sympagic Fauna in and Under Arctic Pack Ice in the Annual Sea-Ice System of the New Arctic". Frontiers in Marine Science 7. doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00452. ISSN 2296-7745. Bibcode: 2020FrMaS...7..452E.
2. ↑ Arrigo, Kevin R. (2014-01-03). "Sea Ice Ecosystems". Annual Review of Marine Science 6 (1): 439–467. doi:10.1146/annurev-marine-010213-135103. ISSN 1941-1405. PMID 24015900. Bibcode: 2014ARMS....6..439A. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-010213-135103.
3. ↑ Krembs, Christopher; Deming, Jody W. (2008), "The Role of Exopolymers in Microbial Adaptation to Sea Ice", Psychrophiles: from Biodiversity to Biotechnology (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg): pp. 247–264, doi:10.1007/978-3-540-74335-4_15, ISBN 978-3-540-74334-7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74335-4_15, retrieved 2025-09-10
4. ↑ Barnes, David K.A; Conlan, Kathleen E (2006-11-30). "Disturbance, colonization and development of Antarctic benthic communities". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362 (1477): 11–38. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1951. ISSN 0962-8436. PMID 17405206. PMC 3227166. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1951.
5. ↑ Hop, Haakon; Poltermann, Michael; Lønne, Ole Jørgen; Falk-Petersen, Stig; Korsnes, Reinert; Budgell, William Paul (2000-04-25). "Ice amphipod distribution relative to ice density and under-ice topography in the northern Barents Sea". Polar Biology 23 (5): 357–367. doi:10.1007/s003000050456. ISSN 0722-4060. Bibcode: 2000PoBio..23..357H. https://doi.org/10.1007/s003000050456.
6. ↑ Sim, Clarence Wei Hung; Ribeiro, Catherine Gerikas; Le Gall, Florence; Probert, Ian; Gourvil, Priscillia; Lovejoy, Connie; Vaulot, Daniel; Lopes dos Santos, Adriana (2024-04-29). "Temporal dynamics and biogeography of sympagic and planktonic autotrophic microbial eukaryotes during the under-ice Arctic bloom". bioRxiv 10.1101/2024.04.26.591324.
7. ↑ Jackson, Victoria L. N.; Grevesse, Thomas; Kilias, Estelle S.; Onda, Deo F. L.; Young, Kirsten F.; Allen, Michael J.; Walsh, David A.; Lovejoy, Connie et al. (2024-11-21). "Vulnerability of Arctic Ocean microbial eukaryotes to sea ice loss". Scientific Reports 14 (1): 28896. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-77821-9. ISSN 2045-2322. PMID 39572565. Bibcode: 2024NatSR..1428896J.

## External links

* "Studies on the Arctic pack-ice habitat and sympagic meiofauna – seasonal and regional variabilities", Henrike Schünemann, University of Kiel, dissertation, 2004
* The Arctic: Ocean of Ice
* Antarctic life
* Glaciology

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