'How allogenic factors affect succession in glacier forefields' published in Earth Science Reviews.

Here we critically review the use of chronosequence approaches in glacier forefields, showing strong effects of initial site conditions, geomorphic disturbances and biogeomorphological processes.

Congratulations to recent PhD-graduate Robin Wojcik on leading this effort, with contributions from James, Liane Benning (GFZ Potsdam) and Jana Eichel (Utrecht University).

Link to paper: HERE.

James and Rey are in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, together with international collaborators Bartek Luks (IG PAS, Poland) and Catherine Larose (Laboratoire Ampère, Lyon, France) on the SIOS-funded project IN-SPACE. They are collecting samples from the Midtre Lovénbreen glacier catchment to look at how spring melting affects microbial community dynamics and biogeochemical cycles.

Bradley lab PhD student Margaret Cramm and supervisor James have been awarded a Center for Advanced Studies Short Term Fellowship to Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU) for their project 'How does permafrost thaw affect microbial activity and function in Arctic soil?'. Margaret and James will visit LMU as CAS Fellows, where they will be hosted by Professor Bill Orsi at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Margaret will carry out an extended secondment in Bill's lab at LMU to develop a combined genetic and stable isotope labelling approach for the analyses of active biological communities within Arctic permafrost under different warming regimes.

James, Amy and Rey are in Svalbard for fieldwork associated with the INTERACT-funded project AMBER-ICE. They are sampling surface snow and ice from Foxfonna glacier, and plan to analyze the samples to understand what kinds of ecosystems these environments support and how they are susceptible to seasonal changes and climate change. They are supported in the field by the Czech Arctic Research Station in Longyearbyen.