F2.10 Subglacial lakes

F2. Lakes biome

F2

Profile summary

Full profile at https://global-ecosystems.org/explore/groups/F2.10

Brief description

These hidden lakes exist beneath permanent ice sheets, sometimes tens to thousands of metres below, mostly in Antarctica and Greenland. Bacteria and other microbes are the only forms of life, but there is a surprising diversity of them. Productivity is very low in the dark and freezing conditions, with species relying on metabolism of chemicals such as methane, iron and sulphur to support the simple foodweb.

Key features

Lakes beneath permanent ice sheets with a truncated microbial food web, including chemoautotrophic and heterotrophic of bacteria and archaea.

Overview of distribution

Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and Canada.

Map description

Major occurrences of subglacial lakes were mapped as point records from Wright and Siegert (2012), Bowler et al. (2019), Marteinsson et al. (2013) and Livingstone et al. (2016). Unmapped lakes are likely to occur within areas with permanent snow and ice cover and were mapped as minor occurrences based on permanent snow and ice from Dinerstein et al. (2017) and Tuanmu et al. (2014)..

Map code and version: F2.10.web.mix v2.0. DOI

Version history

Profile versions

  • v2.1 (2022-04-06): DA Keith; MJ Siegert.1
  • v2.01 (NA): NA.
  • v2.0 (2020-08-17): DA Keith; MJ Siegert.
  • v1.01 (2020-02-21): DA Keith.
  • v1.01 (2020-05-20): DA Keith.
  • v1.01 (2020-02-21): DA Keith; MJ Siegert.

Available maps

Read more details about the current map versions here.

  • Web navigation (code: F2.10.web.mix, version v2.0)
  • Indicative Map (code: F2.10.IM.mix, version v1.0)

Read more details about older or alternative versions of maps for this functional group.

  • Indicative Map: discarded (code: F2.10.IM.orig, version v1.0)
  • Web navigation: discarded (code: F2.10.web.mix, version v1.0)
  • Web navigation: requires review (code: F2.10.web.orig, version v1.0)

References

Main references

References used in the different versions of the profiles.

  • Bowling JS, Livingstone SJ, Sole AJ, Chu W (2019) Distribution and dynamics of Greenland subglacial Lakes Nature Communications 10:2810 DOI:10.1038/s41467-019-10821-w
  • Mikucki JA et al. (2016) Subglacial Lake Whillans microbial biogeochemistry: a synthesis of current knowledge Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 374: 20140290
  • Siegert MJ, Ellis-Evans JC, Tranter M, Mayer C, Petit JR, Salamatink A, Priscu JC (2001) Physical, chemical and biological processes in Lake Vostok and other Antarctic subglacial lakes Nature 414: 603-609 DOI:10.1038/414603a

Map references

References used in the different versions of the maps (current and discarded).

  • Bowling JS, Livingstone SJ, Sole AJ, Chu W (2019) Distribution and dynamics of Greenland subglacial Lakes Nature Communications 10:2810 DOI:10.1038/s41467-019-10821-w
  • Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND, Wikramanayake E, Hahn N, Palminteri S, Hedao P, Noss R, Hansen M, Locke H, Ellis EE, Jones B, Barber CV, Hayes R, Kormos C, Martin V, Crist E, Sechrest W, Price L, Baillie JEM, Weeden D, Suckling K, Davis C, Sizer N, Moore R, Thau D, Birch T, Potapov P, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A, de Souza N, Pintea L, Brito JC, Llewellyn Barnekow Lillesø JP, van Breugel P, Graudal L, Voge M, Al-Shammari KF, Saleem M (2017) An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience 67: 534–545. DOI:10.1093/biosci/bix014. Data-set available on-line
  • Livingstone, S., Utting, D., Ruffell, A. et al. (2016) Discovery of relict subglacial lakes and their geometry and mechanism of drainage Nat Commun 7, ncomms11767 DOI:10.1038/ncomms11767
  • Thór Marteinsson, V., Rúnarsson, Á., Stefánsson, A. et al. (2013) Microbial communities in the subglacial waters of the Vatnajökull ice cap, Iceland ISME J 7, 427–437 DOI:10.1038/ismej.2012.97
  • Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182
  • Wright, A., & Siegert, M. (2012) A fourth inventory of Antarctic subglacial lakes Antarctic Science 24(6), 659-664 DOI:10.1017/S095410201200048X

Footnotes

  1. This is the current version available at official site.↩︎