Grant: Canada Excellence Research Chairs

The CERC research program will focus on geomicrobial transformations as they occur in Arctic sea ice and sediments, including the regeneration of nutrients required by primary producers and thus the health of all other inhabitants of the Arctic marine system. Recent evidence suggests that microbial activity and chemical transformations within sea ice greatly influence inorganic carbonate chemistry, playing a far more important role in regulating carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake by Arctic seas than previously anticipated. The objective of the program is to investigate and quantify the importance of these fundamental microbial activities using state-of-the-art assessment techniques in a comprehensive three-pronged approach of ice tank, in situ, and modelling studies. Combining experimental ice tank and in situ studies will provide important new insight into the regulation of these processes, their seasonal and geographical distribution, and how they are coupled between surface ocean and seafloor. Modelling activities will range from small-scale studies within the sea ice and sediment compartments to local coastal regions of strategic importance and the large-scale systems of the Arctic Ocean and neighbouring seas. This comprehensive effort will markedly improve current knowledge of the magnitude and regulation of microbial activity and biogeochemical processes within the context of their physical/chemical environments. The research has broad economic and environmental impacts as an increased understanding of the microbially mediated nutrient regulation of primary production is a prerequisite to understanding the future for higher organisms in Arctic marine ecosystems and the effects of a changing sea ice environment. The knowledge generated will be applicable to environmental assessment of resource development in the Arctic and the attendant implications for the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Finally, the sea ice mediated uptake of CO2 will have direct implications on the atmospheric CO2 concentration and thus, temperature conditions on the planet