Glaciers and ice sheets contain distinct ecosystems and are very vulnerable to the ongoing climate change, with potentially significant impacts. However, predictions of future glacier ecosystem change are virtually impossible due to the lack of a theoretical framework of glacier and ice sheet ecosystems that would enable their mathematical modelling. Our research aims to provide a theoretical framework of the microbe-dominated supraglacial (glacier surface) ecosystem of the Greenland Ice Sheet and to develop a tool for prediction of the future change of the ecosystem, and to establish the Greenland Ice Sheet as a model ecosystem for studying microbial biogeography and diversity patterns.

You can read about a recent perspective on ecological modelling of the Greenland ice sheet surface ecosystem here.

This research is done in collaboration with Professor David Storch, a theoretical ecologist at the Centre for Theoretical Study.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 657533 (MSCA fellowship EMoGrIS to Marek; 2016-2017).