Fossil mosses are emitting methane after maritime Antarctic glacier retreat.

In the extraordinary weather conditions of the austral summer of 2023, fossil mosses thawed out from under the Bellingshausen Ice Dome, King George Island, Southern Shetland Archipelago of maritime Antarctica. At the end of the austral summer, we directly measured greenhouse gas fluxes (CH and CO) from the surface of fossil mosses. We showed that fossil mosses were strong emitters of CH and weak emitters of CO.

Soil contamination by diesel fuel destabilizes the soil microbial pools: Insights from permafrost soil incubations.

Arctic contamination by diesel fuel (DF) is of great concern because of the uncertain feedback of permafrost carbon (C) and soil microbiota to DF in the context of climate change in high latitudes. We conducted a laboratory incubation experiment with a gradient of DF addition ratios to examine the responses of the soil microbiota of the typical permafrost soils in the tundra ecosystems of the Norilsk region (Siberia). The study revealed initial heterogeneity in the microbial activity of the studied soils (Histic Gleyic Cryosols (CR-hi,gl), Turbic Cryosols (CR-tu), Turbic Spodic Folic Cryosols (CR-tu,sd,fo), Gleyic Fluvisols (FL-gl)).

Metabolic activity of cryogenic soils in the subarctic zone of Siberia towards "green" bioplastics.

The present study investigates, for the first time, the structure of the microbial community of cryogenic soils in the subarctic region of Siberia and the ability of the soil microbial community to metabolize degradable microbial bioplastic - poly-3-hydroxybutyrate [P(3HB)]. When the soil thawed, with the soil temperature between 5-7 and 9-11 °C, the total biomass of microorganisms at a 10-20-cm depth was 226-234 mg g soil and CO production was 20-46 mg g day. The total abundance of microscopic fungi varied between (7.