Omics-based exploration of sea-ice recruitment of Arctic Ocean microbes
What is the motivation?
Understanding how marine microbes colonize newly forming Arctic sea ice is essential for predicting future ecosystem productivity. This project seeks to identify the microbes and phytoplankton that interact with young sea ice and to clarify the recruitment process, offering key insights into how polar life adapts to rapid environmental change.
Why does it matter?
Sea ice hosts rich microbial communities that sustain Arctic food webs and influence global climate through carbon cycling. Yet the initial steps of microbial colonisation and survival within the ice remain poorly understood. By uncovering the mechanisms of recruitment and adaptation during freeze-up, this project addresses a major knowledge gap and improves models of how Arctic ecosystems may respond to climate change, with relevance both for Earth system science and for potential analogues of life in icy extraterrestrial environments.
Project Focus
Arctomics examines how microbial and phytoplankton communities are incorporated into newly forming sea ice and how their composition and activity change as the ice ages. The project combines high-resolution spatial and temporal sampling with molecular approaches—metabarcoding, metagenomics and metatranscriptomics—to characterise the diversity and metabolic pathways that underpin early ice-associated ecosystems during the initial freeze-up in Baffin Bay.
How will it be done?
During the second leg of the CASCADES expedition, sea-ice and seawater samples will be collected across different stages of ice formation. Advanced DNA and RNA sequencing will identify microbial species and their active genes. Complementary measurements of algal photophysiology will document how photosynthetic organisms adjust to freezing and low-light conditions, combining molecular and ecological data to develop models of microbial recruitment.
What will be collected?
Sea-ice cores and seawater samples from different ice ages, together with measurements of temperature, salinity and light. DNA and RNA will be extracted for metabarcoding, metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses. Additional photophysiological data will be obtained using fluorescence and absorption sensors to assess algal activity.
Members and partners
- Principal Investigator:
- Chris Bowler – Institut de Biologie de l’École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
- Other participants:
- Chloé Hollerer – Institut de Biologie de l’École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
- Eric Pelletier – Genomic Analysis of Eukaryotes Laboratory, Genoscope, Paris, France
- Benjamin Bailleul – Institut of Physico-Chemical Biology, Paris, France
- Partners:
- CNRS–TAKUVIK, University of Laval, Québec City, Canada