Temporal and spatial variation of the benthic microbial community in the Adventelva Delta, RiS ID 11595

The climate is changing more rapidly in the Arctic than in most areas of the planet. The combination of thawing permafrost, melting glaciers, and changes in patterns of precipitation and vegetation are causing increased inputs of freshwater with organic material, sediments, and nutrients from terrestrial systems into coastal ecosystems. This increased influx has a broad range of potential impacts on coastal systems, and the effect on benthic microbial communities is understudied. Benthic microbial communities form an essential foundation for entire aquatic ecosystems and play an important role in global carbon cycling. There is a great need for more research on coastal benthic microbial communities, especially in dynamic estuarine systems in the rapidly changing Arctic. This master’s thesis will characterize temporal changes to the microbial community composition in the benthic substrate of the Adventelva delta. I will characterize the microbial community with 16S and 18S rRNA and examine its function through a taxonomic approach. Results from this project will leverage new information from the larger FreshFate project, which studies freshwater impacts on Svalbard’s coastal ecosystems, to better understand the seasonal processes in a high Arctic river delta.