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This is an aerial view of several lakes around the Kangerlussuaq region of Greenland where researchers from The University of Maine collected diatom samples for study. Jasmine Saros, a lake ecologist at the University of Maine, and her research team are studying how climate change is affecting the arctic ecosystem in this part of Greenland.
In particular, Saros is studying how different species thrive or falter under changing conditions. Diatoms, a type of algae that leave a fossil in the lake sediment, are bioindicators--species that serve as a representative sample of their ecosystem and a monitor of environmental change. By examining the fossils, which can provide a record going back thousands of years, Saros can determine which diatom species were here in the past. Her team is studying water and mud samples gathered from lakes around the edge of Russell Glacier and are using information gleaned as a tool to better understand how environmental change affects the lakes' ecosystems.Image credit: Benjamin Burpee, The University of Maine
