UNH Today

Randomness, not Environmental Selection, Key to Altering Bacteria in Arctic

In the Northeast, heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose growing challenges. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised, according to NASA. Such climatic outcomes at lower latitudes could be, in part, affected by changes to microbial communities in the Arctic, where the thawing of permafrost changes how microbes contribute to global greenhouse gas production. To further understand and predict the implications of a thawing Arctic, scientists with the University of New Hampshire's College of Life Sciences and Agriculture have focused on identifying ecological factors that play key roles in affecting changes to microbial communities.