MICRO-CASCADES: Exploring Arctic Microbial Life from the Atmosphere to the Ocean Depths

This summer, The microbial dynamics team will join the CASCADES expedition on board the CCGS Amundsen. This is a collaborative initiative led by the Institut Nordique du Québec, the Swiss Polar Institute, and the French Polar Institute. 
Within this expedition, the MICRO-CASCADES project will investigate the connectivity, dormancy and functional potential of microbial communities across atmospheric, terrestrial, glacial and marine environments in Northwest Greenland.

To do so, samples will be collected from soil, glacial ice, glacial meltwater, ocean water and aerosols across Arctic habitats and analysed using DNA sequencing technologies.

The project will further examines how microbial communities shift across these systems in response to climate-driven environmental gradients and evaluate the exposure and vulnerability of microbes to future climatic scenarios, forecasting potential responses and identifying both sensitive taxa and key ecosystem functions at risk.  

To learn more about the expedition, you can visit the official CASCADE website: https://cascades-expedition.science/projects/micro-cascades/

The project is funded by the Swiss Polar Institute.

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