Date of Award
5-16-2025
Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Adebowale Ogunjirin
Second Advisor
Phan Dawson
Third Advisor
Afaf Abdelrahim
Abstract
Climate change is shifting the stability of sensitive ecosystems in the Arctic region due to global warming, with widespread impacts on permafrost regions, including the Stordalen Mire region of Sweden. Due to climate change, the Stordalen Mire is composed of thawing permafrost shifting into a wetland (V onk et al., 2015). As permafrost thaws, the landscape transforms due to changing water environmental conditions, causing lower pH changes and higher temperatures in the water, impacting the underlying soil chemistry and biology, vegetation, and microbial communities (Webb et al., 2022). The increased temperature can enhance methanogenic microbial growth by expanding the groundwater levels that make recently thawed organic carbon readily available for metabolism. Increased different types of microbial activity in the thawing permafrost emit more methane into the environment, raising temperatures even more. Water samples from surrounding lakes and streams were collected in the summer of 2023 to understand the type of microbes in the shifting climate. The samples were analyzed using 16S rRNA metabarcoding. Then, using the coding, graphs were created, including a principal coordinates analysis plot and a species accumulation curve plot showing different taxonomic microbial species between the water and sediment in the surrounding lake and stream samples. Common microbial types were found in the Stordalen Mire and Inre Harrsjon, including Woesearchaea, proteobacteria, and actinobacteria. Future studies can focus on expanding the sample size and conducting more studies on the relationship between microbial communities and climate change processes.
Recommended Citation
Wilcox, Maizy, "Investigating the Microbial Communities in Freshwaters of Northern Sweden" (2025). Undergraduate University Honors Capstones. 135.
https://ida.gallaudet.edu/honors_capstones/135
