Moss Balls of Alaska
Moss balls (aka glacier mice) are a rare habitat found on glacier ecosystems known to exist in Alaska, Iceland, and Svalbard. Alaska moss balls and taxonomy have been described on glaciers by the US Geological Survey since the early 1950s (Benninghoff 1955), the invertebrates and meiofauna have been examined in moss balls in Iceland (Coulson & Midgley 2012), and their associations with cryoconite has been studied in Svalbard (Belkina & Vilnet 2015). Their movement has been tracked on an Alaskan Glacier (Hotaling et al. 2020). I am currently developing projects to understand the microbiome of mossballs, community assembly, and spatial relationships of the glacier history and moss ball formation.
Initial Results of Bacterial Microbiome of Alaska moss balls
Scan QR Code to view initial results presented at the Ecological Society of America meeting in August 2024. More information will be available in the near future.
Study Aims
I am to understand how glacier landscapes evolve and ecological connections as glaciers downwaste and recede. For example, what role do moss balls play in the development of soils? Do moss balls seed future bogs with an ancient microbiota?
