The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average since 1979, resulting in rapid glacier retreat and exposing new glacier forelands. These forelands offer unique experimental settings to explore how global warming impacts ecosystems, particularly for highly climate-sensitive arthropods. Understanding these impacts can help anticipate future biodiversity and ecosystem changes under ongoing warming scenarios. In this study, we integrate data on arthropod diversity from DNA gut content analysis-offering insight into predator diets-with quantitative measures of arthropod activity-density at a Greenland glacier foreland using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Our SEM analysis reveals both bottom-up and top-down controlled food chains. Bottom-up control, linked to sit-and-wait predator behavior, was prominent for spider and harvestman populations, while top-down control, associated with active search behavior, was key for ground beetle populations. Bottom-up controlled dynamics predominated during the early stages of vegetation succession, while top-down mechanisms dominated in later successional stages further from the glacier, driven largely by increasing temperatures. In advanced successional stages, top-down cascades intensify intraguild predation (IGP) among arthropod predators. This is especially evident in the linyphiid spider Collinsia holmgreni, whose diet included other linyphiid and lycosid spiders, reflecting high IGP. The IGP ratio in C. holmgreni negatively correlated with the activity-density of ground-dwelling prey, likely contributing to the local decline and possible extinction of this cold-adapted species in warmer, late-succession habitats where lycosid spiders dominate. These findings suggest that sustained warming and associated shifts in food web dynamics could lead to the loss of cold-adapted species, while brief warm events may temporarily impact populations without lasting extinction effects.

Permafrost controls geomorphological dynamics in maritime Antarctic ecosystems. Here, we analyze and model ground thermal regime in bordering conditions between continuous and discontinuous permafrost to better understand its relationship with the timing of glacial retreat. In February 2017, a transect including 10 sites for monitoring ground temperatures was installed in the eastern fringe of Byers Peninsula (Livingston Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula), together with one station recording air temperatures and snow thickness. The sites were selected following the Mid-Late Holocene deglaciation of the area at a distance ranging from 0.30 to 3.15 km from the current Rotch Dome glacier front. The transect provided data on the effects of topography, snow cover and the timing of ice-free exposure, on the ground thermal regime. From February 2017 to February 2019, the mean annual air temperature was - 2.0 degrees C, which was > 0.5 degrees C higher than 1986-2015 average in the Western Antarctic Peninsula region. Mean annual ground temperature at 10 cm depth varied between 0.3 and -1.1 degrees C, similar to the modelled Temperatures on the Top of the Permafrost (TTOP) that ranged from 0.06 +/- 0.08 degrees C to -1.33 +/- 0.07 degrees C. The positive average temperatures at the warmest site were related to the long-lasting presence of snow which favoured warmer ground temperatures and may trigger permafrost degradation. The role of other factors (topography, and timing of the deglaciation) explained intersite differences, but the overall effect was not as strong as snow cover.

The VAMPERS (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Permafrost Snow Model) has been coupled within iLOVECLIM, an earth system model. This advancement allows the thermal coupling between permafrost and climate to be examined from a millennial timescale using equilibrium experiments during the Last Glacial Maximum (21 ka) and transient experiments for the subsequent deglaciation period (21-11 ka). It appears that the role of permafrost during both stable and transitional (glacial-interglacial) climate periods is seasonal, resulting in cooler summers and warmer winters by approximately +/- 2 degrees C maximum. This conclusion reinforces the importance of including the active layer within climate models. In addition, the coupling of VAMPERS also yields a simulation of transient permafrost conditions, not only for estimating areal changes in extent but also total permafrost gain/loss.

Climate warming is expected to destabilize permafrost carbon (PF-C) by thaw-erosion and deepening of the seasonally thawed active layer and thereby promote PF-C mineralization to CO2 and CH4. A similar PF-C remobilization might have contributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2 during deglacial warming after the last glacial maximum. Using carbon isotopes and terrestrial biomarkers (Delta C-14, delta C-13, and lignin phenols), this study quantifies deposition of terrestrial carbon originating from permafrost in sediments from the Chukchi Sea (core SWERUS-L2-4-PC1). The sediment core reconstructs remobilization of permafrost carbon during the late Allerod warm period starting at 13,000 cal years before present (BP), the Younger Dryas, and the early Holocene warming until 11,000 cal years BP and compares this period with the late Holocene, from 3,650 years BP until present. Dual-carbon-isotope-based source apportionment demonstrates that Ice Complex Deposit-ice- and carbon-rich permafrost from the late Pleistocene (also referred to as Yedoma)-was the dominant source of organic carbon (66 +/- 8%; mean +/- standard deviation) to sediments during the end of the deglaciation, with fluxes more than twice as high (8.0 +/- 4.6 g.m(-2).year(-1)) as in the late Holocene (3.1 +/- 1.0 g.m(-2).year(-1)). These results are consistent with late deglacial PF-C remobilization observed in a Laptev Sea record, yet in contrast with PF-C sources, which at that location were dominated by active layer material from the Lena River watershed. Release of dormant PF-C from erosion of coastal permafrost during the end of the last deglaciation indicates vulnerability of Ice Complex Deposit in response to future warming and sea level changes.

The process of deglaciation in the Antarctic Peninsula region has large implications for the geomorphological and ecological dynamics of the ice-free environments. However, uncertainties still remain regarding the age of deglaciation in many coastal environments, as is the case in the South Shetland Islands. This study focuses on the Byers Peninsula, the largest ice-free area in this archipelago and the one with greatest biodiversity in Antarctica. A complete lacustrine sedimentary sequence was collected from five lakes distributed along a transect from the western coast to the Rotch Dome glacier front: Limnopolar, Chester, Escondido, Cerro Negro and Domo lakes. A multiple dating approach based on C-14, thermoluminescence and tephrochronology was applied to the cores in order to infer the Holocene environmental history and identify the deglaciation chronology in the Byers Peninsula. The onset of the deglaciation started during the Early Holocene in the western fringe of the Byers Peninsula according to the basal dating of Limnopolar Lake (ca. 8.3 cal. ky BP). Glacial retreat gradually exposed the highest parts of the Cerro Negro nunatak in the SE corner of Byers, where Cerro Negro Lake is located; this lake was glacier-free since at least 7.5 ky. During the Mid-Holocene the retreat of the Rotch Dome glacier cleared the central part of the Byers plateau of ice, and Escondido and Chester lakes formed at 6 cal. ky BP and 5.9 ky, respectively. The dating of the basal sediments of Domo Lake suggests that the deglaciation of the current ice-free easternmost part of the Byers Peninsula occurred before 1.8 cal. ky BP. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Our novel study examines landscape biogeochemical evolution following deglaciation and permafrost change in Svalbard by looking at the productivity of various micro-catchments existing within one watershed. It also sheds light on how moraine, talus and soil environments contribute to solute export from the entire watershed into the downstream marine ecosystem. We find that solute dynamics in different micro-catchments are sensitive to abiotic factors such as runoff volume, water temperature, geology, geomorphological controls upon hydrological flowpaths and landscape evolution following sea level and glacial changes. Biotic factors influence the anionic composition of runoff because of the importance of microbial SO42- and NO3- production. The legacy of glaciation and its impact upon sea level changes is shown to influence local hydrochemistry, allowing Cl- to be used as a tracer of thawing permafrost that has marine origins. However, we show that a glacial signal' dominates solute export from the watershed. Therefore, although climatically driven change in the proglacial area has an influence on local ecosystems, the biogeochemical response of the entire watershed is dominated by glacially derived products of rapid chemical weathering. Consequently, only the study of micro-catchments existing within watersheds can uncover the landscape response to contemporary climate change. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.