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Sea Ice Algal and Bacterial Productivity: Patterns, Processes and Environmental...
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Sea Ice Algal and Bacterial Productivity: Patterns, Processes and Environmental Change

A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 November 2026 | Viewed by 1545

Editor

Dr. Dorte Haubjerg Søgaard

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Center for the Ice-Free Arctic Research (CIFAR), Aarhus Universitet, Aarhus, Denmark
Interests: sea ice ecology; Arctic biogeochemistry; microbial processes; nutrient cycling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sea ice algal productivity is a critical component of polar marine ecosystems, initiating primary production in early spring when sunlight begins to penetrate the ice. These microalgae form dynamic communities within and beneath the sea ice, contributing significantly to carbon fixation before the onset of open-water phytoplankton blooms. Sea ice algal productivity and communities are shaped by a complex interplay of light availability, nutrient fluxes, snow and ice structure, and ocean–ice–atmosphere interactions. These communities exhibit strong spatial and temporal variability, driven by microscale habitat heterogeneity and species-specific adaptations to extreme polar conditions.

Equally important is the sea ice bacterial productivity, including bacterial respiration and nutrient remineralization, which, in certain periods, can exceed primary productivity in the sea ice, highlighting the role of microbial food web processes in regulating nutrient cycling and oxygen dynamics. Quantifying how primary productivity and bacterial productivity contribute to and regulate carbon cycling is essential to understanding the structure and functioning of sea ice ecosystems. Such insights are critical for predicting how food webs and biogeochemical processes in Polar regions will respond to ongoing environmental changes.

This Special Issue aims to advance and synthesize knowledge relating to the biological and environmental drivers of sea ice algal and bacterial productivity in polar ecosystems. We welcome studies that investigate how these microbial communities respond to physical and chemical gradients and how their activity shapes broader ecological and biogeochemical processes. Contributions from both the Arctic and Antarctic are encouraged. 

Key themes include the following: 

  • Spatial and/or temporal patterns of algal and/or bacterial biomass, production, and bloom development.
  • Influence of environmental factors (e.g., light availability and spectral composition, nutrient dynamics, salinity, and temperature) on sea ice microbial productivity and community structure.
  • Autotrophic, heterotrophic, and/or mixotrophic contributions to sea ice and under-ice carbon budgets.
  • Nutrient recycling, remineralization, and oxygen dynamics in relation to microbial processes.
  • Impacts of sea ice decline, freshwater input, stratification, and glacier melt on productivity.
  • Carbon export pathways and coupling between sea ice, pelagic, or benthic ecosystems.
  • Integrated approaches combining sea ice biological, physical, and biogeochemical data.
  • Modeling efforts that incorporate sea ice microbial processes into ecosystem or carbon budget frameworks. 

We invite contributions that address key questions about how evolving environmental conditions influence sea ice’s algal and bacterial productivity, and how these microbial processes regulate carbon cycling in sea ice-covered ecosystems. This Special Issue seeks to bring together high-quality research focused on microbial productivity and ecosystem functioning in sea ice environments. By including contributions from both Polar regions, we aim to provide a comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge and highlight critical research gaps in the context of climate change.

The Special Issue will publish high-quality papers dealing with the aspects mentioned above, both from the Arctic and Antarctica.

Dr. Dorte Haubjerg Søgaard
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sea ice ecology
  • sea ice biogeochemistry
  • microbial processes
  • nutrient cycling within and beneath sea ice
  • sea ice algal productivity
  • sea ice bacterial productivity
  • arctic and antarctic ecosystem dynamics

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 1986 KB  
Article
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Photobiology of a Short-Lived Landfast First-Year Sea Ice in Nuup Kangerlua, SW Greenland
by Brian K. Sorrell, Lars Chresten Lund-Hansen and Dorte H. Søgaard
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2026, 14(12), 1071; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse14121071 - 8 Jun 2026
Viewed by 247
Abstract
Across much of the Arctic, climate warming has reduced the extent of thicker and more persistent sea ice and increased the prevalence of thinner first-year ice. Thin first-year landfast sea ice is ecologically important because reduced ice thickness can increase light transmission to [...] Read more.
Across much of the Arctic, climate warming has reduced the extent of thicker and more persistent sea ice and increased the prevalence of thinner first-year ice. Thin first-year landfast sea ice is ecologically important because reduced ice thickness can increase light transmission to the ice–water interface, while the associated brine conditions, including salinity and permeability, can strongly influence algal biomass accumulation and photophysiology. This thin (0.24–0.55 m), short-lived, seasonal, first-year landfast sea ice already dominates Nuup Kangerlua fjord, southwest Greenland, making it a useful natural example of ice conditions that may become more common in parts of the future Arctic. We focused on late February–early March because this period captures the seasonal transition from very low winter irradiance toward increasing spring light, when sea ice algal communities begin photosynthetic acclimation prior to the main bloom period. Using this site as an example of future Arctic-like conditions, we investigated chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentration and the photobiology of sea ice algal communities during five sampling events between 2017 and 2022. The vertical distribution of Chl a concentration and photobiological parameters measured with variable chlorophyll fluorescence differed between years, as did Chl a concentrations, with integrated biomass ranging from 0.08 to 0.78 mg Chl a m−2. Direct under-ice PAR measurements showed transmittance values ranging from 0.013 to 0.29. Bottom-ice communities were acclimated to relatively high light intensities, with Ek often exceeding 200 µmol photons m−2 s−1, and we detected no clear evidence of photoinhibition in the fluorescence data. Boosted regression tree models identified brine salinity as the main predictor of both Chl a concentration, explaining 42.0% of the variation, and, ΦPSII_max, the maximum dark-adapted photosynthetic efficiency, explaining 86.1% of the variation. Both parameters decreased exponentially with increasing sea ice brine salinity (p < 0.0001), indicating that higher brine salinity was associated with reduced algal biomass and lower photosynthetic efficiency. These results show that short-lived first-year landfast sea ice can support physiologically active sea ice algal communities despite relatively low biomass, and suggest that algal performance in this ice type was more strongly associated with brine salinity during the late-winter to early spring sampling period, while light availability also varied substantially among years. As thin and short-lived sea ice conditions become more common in parts of the Arctic, this habitat may represent an increasingly important, though temporally variable, component of Arctic marine primary production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sea Ice Algal and Bacterial Productivity: Patterns, Processes and Environmental Change)
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19 pages, 2617 KB  
Article
Snow and Sea Ice Melt Enhance Under-Ice pCO2 Undersaturation in Arctic Waters
by Josefa Verdugo, Eugenio Ruiz-Castillo, Søren Rysgaard, Wieter Boone, Tim Papakyriakou, Nicolas-Xavier Geilfus and Lise Lotte Sørensen
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2025, 13(12), 2257; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse13122257 - 27 Nov 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 797
Abstract
The decline in Arctic summer sea ice alters air–sea gas exchange. Because the Arctic Ocean accounts for 5%–14% of global oceanic carbon uptake, understanding how sea ice melt impacts the ocean’s carbon sink capacity is central to constraining future fluxes. In this study, [...] Read more.
The decline in Arctic summer sea ice alters air–sea gas exchange. Because the Arctic Ocean accounts for 5%–14% of global oceanic carbon uptake, understanding how sea ice melt impacts the ocean’s carbon sink capacity is central to constraining future fluxes. In this study, we focus on Young Sound-Tyrolerfjord in Northeast Greenland to examine the sea ice−ocean interaction during the transition from melt onset to melt pond drainage. High-frequency measurements of partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) and seawater physical properties were taken 2.5 m below the sea ice. Our results reveal that pCO2 in the seawater was undersaturated (248–354 μatm) compared to the atmosphere (401 μatm), showing that the seawater has the potential to take up atmospheric CO2 as the sea ice breaks up. The pCO2 undersaturation was attributed to dilution resulting from mixing meltwater from snow and sea ice with the under-ice seawater. Additionally, the drainage of melt pond water that had been in contact with the atmosphere into the under-ice seawater further lowered pCO2. Melt pond drainage represents an initial connection between the atmosphere and under-ice seawater through meter-thick sea ice during the summer thaw. Our study demonstrates that snow and sea ice melt reduce pCO2 in under-ice seawater, enhancing its potential for atmospheric CO2 uptake during sea ice breakup. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sea Ice Algal and Bacterial Productivity: Patterns, Processes and Environmental Change)
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