Ice algae is any of the various types of algal communities encountered in annual and multi-year sea-ice. The ice algal communities play an important role in primary production and are therefore considered an important part of both Polar ecosystems.
Sea-ice algal communities can be found between ice crystals or attached to them, in the interstitial water or brine channels between ice crystals, or simply associated with the undersurface of the ice.
Although phytoplankton production is greater than that of ice algae on an annual basis in most offshore regions of the Southern Ocean, blooms of sea-ice algae differ considerably from the phytoplankton in terms of timing and distribution. Thus sea-ice algae provide food resources for higher trophic level organisms in seasons and regions where water column biological production is low or negligible.
A different kind of ice algae live on glacier surfaces, a permanently cold freshwater ecosystem. Known members of this group include Mesotaenium berggrenii and Ancylonema nordensskiöldii.
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or algae:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“there, where you live,
live:
start over,
everyman, with
the algae of your dreams.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)