Impact of anthropogenic contamination on glacier surface biota

Abstract

Glaciers are ecosystems and they host active biological communities. Despite their remoteness, glaciers act as cold condensers where high precipitation rates and cold temperatures favor the deposition of pollutants. These contaminants include a broad range of substances, including legacy pollutants, but also compounds still largely used. Some of these compounds are monitored in the environment and their effects on the ecosystems are known, in contrast others can be defined as emerging pollutants since their presence and their impact on the environment are still poorly understood (e.g. microplastics, radionuclides). This review aim to provide an overview of the studies that have investigated the effects of pollutants on the supraglacial ecosystem so far. Despite the distribution of the pollutants in glacier environments has been discussed in several studies, no review paper has summarized the current knowledge on the effects of these substances on the ecological communities living in glacier ecosystems.