What is it about?
Yeasts were found to play an important role in soil formation in the Arctic, after glaciers melt and retreat. The cold adapted yeasts act as microscopic pioneers that colonize the new exposed rocky post-glacier landscape and help to store carbon thereby promoting soil formation in new high-Arctic ecosystems.
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Why is it important?
Glacial ice covers roughly a tenth of the land surface of the Earth, but glaciers are retreating as a consequence of global warming which exposes new land that has been covered in ice for thousands of years. After the ice melts and glaciers retreat microbes colonize the expose bedrock, and this helps to accumulate nutrients leading to the formation of soil and soil ecosystems. Because soil can be significant for carbon storage, how new soils form after the melting of glaciers is a question of great scientific and societal relevance in the context of the current Arctic warming trend.
Perspectives
The results demonstrate that fungi, specifically cold adapted yeasts, will play a critical role in future carbon storage in Arctic soils as glaciers continue to shrink and more of Earth’s surface area becomes covered with soil.
William Orsi
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Principal role of fungi in soil carbon stabilization during early pedogenesis in the high Arctic, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2402689121.
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