Author

Melanie Bergmann

Melanie Bergmann

Melanie Bergmann is a senior scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. Her current research focuses on plastic debris and microplastics.

COMMENTARY
Ice algae sampling on an Arctic ice floe. Mario Hoppmann/Alfred Wegener Institute, CC BY-NC-ND

Microplastics: We found startling quantities in the algae essential for all Arctic marine life

By: , and - May 23, 2023

Last summer, we travelled to the remote Arctic Hausgarten observatory area in the eastern Fram Strait (west of Svalbard, Norway) on a research ship. The samples we collected there included ice cores, sea water and ice algae from large packs of floating ice called ice floes. These form 1–2 meter thick “plates” of sea ice […]