Melting glaciers - an opportunity for biodiversity research

As glaciers melt, they expose land that has been under ice for centuries. The barren substrate is almost devoid of life but over time, various organisms take up residence in the deglaciated areas and start to form complex ecosystems – a process that is known to ecologists as primary succession. If uninterrupted, a gradient of successional stages emerges that range from species-poor stony habitats to diverse and functional ecosystems. However, these successional seres can only be studied in their full length – from barren substrate to vibrant ecosystem - if there are still glaciers left that continue to melt and leave freshly exposed substrate in their wake. With hindsight to the current pace of glacial retreat, it is a unique opportunity for ecologists to study the establishment of new ecosystems along the gradients of current glacial retreat.

Due to rising global temperatures, most glaciers retreat since the late 19^th century. Our study system, the Ödenwinkel glacier in the Austrian Alps, lost about 1.7km in length within the last 150 years. I remember well walking down from the glacier´s terminus across the forefield for the first time. You could see all the stages of succession laid out in sequence. In the early stages, recently exposed areas were still uninhabited, whereas in intermediate stages, flower-rich grasslands had already established that were soon to be accompanied by woody plants of the late succession. Certain species became less abundant or disappeared entirely, while others thrived and became dominant. All along the gradient, life interplayed with itself and the physical environment. Some examples were obvious: without plants there would be no pollen-producing flowers and without insects to pollinate there would be no seeds. Others are less obvious – belowground, fungal mycelia and bacteria break down dead plant material and animals and recycle their nutrients. Walking along a succession, you will find countless such interactions. All of them need time to develop and the further you walk, the more interactions you will find until finally, they all mound into a diverse and complex ecosystem.

Ödenwinkel - an alpine  platform for research on ecosystem complexity

Our aim is to achieve a holistic understanding on the processes that drive the emergence of such complex ecosystems. A few years ago, we set up a long-term ecological research and monitoring platform within the Ödenwinkel forefield. Every year our group spent a couple of weeks in the field to measure environmental parameters, collect insects, record plant species, and take microbial samples. For our recent publication, we used this data to calculate multidiversity, a measure of whole ecosystem biodiversity. Previous theoretical work suggested that successions are structured by ecological tipping points. When passing such a tipping-point, the ecosystem is abruptly boosted into a new, more complex developmental stage that is characterized by more and intensified biotic interactions.

To make the long story short: We could identify such a tipping-point and show that the formation of natural ecosystems follows the predicted trajectory of the theoretical framework! We show that structuring mechanisms in the ecosystem completely change before and after the threshold and that this change occurs abruptly within only a few years.  If you´re interested in the whole story, you can find our article here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03372-2

Currently, our glacier is receding another 30 meters every year and is expected to vanish within the next decades. Believe me, it is really frustrating to experience the devastating consequences of human-made climate change up close. Yet, climate change offers us a unique opportunity for fundamental biodiversity research that we should seize. Our group is already planning to set up more observational plots in the feshly exposed areas that the glacier has left over the last years. We will accompany the Ödenwinkel glacier until all the ice has melted and species rich ecosystems have developed instead.

Literature: 

• Allan, Eric, et al. "Interannual variation in land-use intensity enhances grassland multidiversity." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.1 (2014): 308-313.

• Chang, Cynthia, and Janneke HilleRisLambers. "Integrating succession and community assembly perspectives." F1000Research 5 (2016).

• Junker, Robert R., et al. "Ödenwinkel: an Alpine platform for observational and experimental research on the emergence of multidiversity and ecosystem complexity." Web Ecology 20.2 (2020): 95-106.