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Interdisciplinary Arctic - Prof. Krzysztof Zawierucha

We keep hearing that the Arctic is warming faster than other regions. It varies with each passing year, not only the temperature, precipitation and ice extent but also the landscape, biodiversity and functions of the Arctic ecosystem. Do we have the opportunity at AMU to study how the Arctic ecosystem and its inhabitants are changing? To learn about the role of humans in shaping these remote places?

The answer to the questions raised above is "yes!" Thanks to the efforts of scientists from the Faculties of Biology, Geographical and Geological Sciences and Chemistry, we already have tremendous knowledge regarding these places. Students from the Faculty of Biology are joining the game as part of the BioGeoEko in the Arctic course.

Once again, students from the Faculty of Biology got a peek at the glories and shadows of working in the Arctic. A group of seven students, chosen in a two-stage recruitment process, collected material required for monitoring studies, attended lectures by specialists, conducted physicochemical measurements of water, took ice cores and observed the fauna and flora around central Spitsbergen. The course participants were students of biology (Maria Stachowiak, Martyna Gajzmer, Olaf Gwiazdowski, Jędrzej Warguła), nature and forestry education (Aleksandra Gawrońska) and environmental protection (Magdalena Strawa and Kinga Skoczeń). Their work was supervised by Prof. Krzysztof Zawierucha, Prof. Beata Messyasz and Łukasz Grewling, PhD. The BioGeoEko in the Arctic course aims to familiarise students with the specifics of research in the Arctic and the methodology of collecting and analysing material or working in a group (in not always pleasant conditions!).

The course's priority was to collect samples for the biodiversity monitoring of tundra, soil, freshwater, and glacial ecosystems formed three years earlier at the Faculty of Biology. It is worth boasting that - following the plan adopted at Polar Day 2023 at AMU. The first material from our expeditions has already been deposited in the Nature Collection of the Faculty of Biology and will be accessible to interested researchers in the coming months. The students collected soil and freshwater material in colonies of alcids (Alle alle) and white-throated barnacles (Branta leucopsis) in the foreground of a glacier and the vicinity of an abandoned kennel. Why? Our primary objective is to check the spatial distribution patterns of organisms, which are imperceptible because they are microscopic but crucial in ecosystems and to study their changes over time.

In addition, as in previous years, we collected material for aerobiological analyses and glacier sediments at each of the areas mentioned. This year, there were as many as three innovations! The first was the analysis of basic snow parameters at snow algal blooms and the collection of material to study the composition of the snow biota. The second newly developed element was the identification of plant fossils from the Paleogene period. It was possible to identify plants not only long extinct but also those whose close relatives, in a virtually unchanged form, have survived to the present day. The last point, equally significant, was the collection of algae overgrowing anthropogenic elements (plastic, logs, nets) in freshwater reservoirs around the town of Longyearbyen. As always, course participants, especially ornithologists, enjoyed observing avifauna while botanists collected Arctic vascular plants and even made a salad. Expanding our activities would not have been possible without the Polish Polar Consortium (of which AMU is a member) and the BERA logistics and science centre in Longyearbyen coordinated by the Consortium. The centre provided us not only with space to sort and describe the material collected in the field but also invaluable lecture space. We had the opportunity to listen to exciting lectures on biogeography and invertebrate diversity by Prof. Stephen Coulson (University Center in Svalbard), learn about the secrets of geophysical research thanks to Marta Kondracka, PhD, or discover the life of glaciers, which was introduced to us in a fascinating lecture by Dariusz Ignatiuk, PhD (both of whom work as researchers at the University of Silesia). There was not much time for all these activities. The group had just seven days in the region to complete the planned tasks. We worked every day from early morning until late at night, finishing our work even at 11.30 p.m. Luckily, the polar day allowed us to work for many hours. In our break moments, we played botanical "Memory cards" to further memorise the beautiful plants of the Arctic. At the end of the course, the students had to pass the botanical part, identifying plants in the field, and, on arrival in Poznań, the theoretical part, on the history of research in Spitsbergen, invertebrate diversity, avifauna ecology and glacier functioning. The participants brought with them not only material but, above all, invaluable knowledge.

Source: Uniwersyteckie.pl