Hey everyone, I hope you all are excited to read this week’s post, because I sure was to write it!

 

I want to start with a survey that I conducted in the past week. The survey I conducted previously showed that the most people thought glacial melting was very urgent, and that the loss of biodiversity was the least urgent.

I decided to combine these 2 problems and ask- How important is the impact of glacial melting on biodiversity to you?

I surveyed 41 respondents- 28 males and 13 females, with an average age of 23.2, of which 90.2% were either undergraduates or graduates not from environmental studies, and the other 9.8% being secondary and primary school students.

 

What I gather from this is that although people do see the importance in the problem of glacial melting, some of them do not see the importance in the potential loss of biodiversity. What do you think of this?

 

When I asked what they thought the impacts of glacial melting on biodiversity were, this is what I got:

How accurate is this? Let’s find out.

 

This week, I would like to investigate the role that glaciers play in sustaining wildlife.

 

As glaciers are barren and cold, with temperatures dropping to -55.4 degrees Celsius in the Greenland Ice Sheet, not many organisms live on them. Some animals that live on them include the Himalayan Wingless Glacier Midge and the Ice worm in New Zealand glaciers. They survive by consuming glacial algae and bacteria.

 

However, if we look at the animals that visit glaciers for other purposes, it paints a totally different picture! Animals visit glaciers for various purposes, like caching their food, for temporary escape from the heat, travel and even for fun. The wolverine caches its food in glaciers, preserving its food for periods when food is lacking. Animals like the brown bear and snow leopard have been seen travelling on glaciers, presumably because glaciers are easier to traverse than the mountainous surroundings.

 

Melting glaciers leave these animals with no avenue for these activities. However, looking at the issue from a different perspective, we can see how animals start to populate areas left behind by retreating glaciers. In Norway, beetles, spiders and springtails that feed on algae have been found residing in such areas.

This doesn’t make the melting of glaciers ok, but it shows us how resilient and opportunistic life on Earth is.

 

Of course, glacial runoff also flows into many rivers around the world (as mentioned in my previous post) and sustains many ecosystems.

 

The impacts of melting glaciers on wildlife are numerous and complex. The impacts go beyond the direct effects their melting will have on the wildlife that live on or around the glaciers. They affect wildlife indirectly, through the rising sea levels and global temperatures, which would lead to more frequent extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts, posing a danger to wildlife.

 

I hope this post has brought you some insight on glaciers and wildlife. I’ll see you next week!

(On a side note, here’s a video by BBC of cute otters around a glacier calving event.)