Video Transcript:
While cruising through the pack ice, nearly no signs of life are visible on the surface of the ice. However, the ice interior and its bottom is loaded with diverse assemblages of bacteria, algae, protozoans and metazoans. This movie shows you two typical representatives of the ice fauna: first, amphipods and second, turbellarians. During our cruise, we encountered large amphipods, like Gammarus wilkitzkii, which live permanently at the bottom of the ice. The recorded animal had a size of about 5 cm. Feeding experiments during the cruise demonstrated that they successfully can catch planktic copepods. Animals within the ice are rather small. Turbellarians are among the largest in-ice creatures with a body length of up to 1 mm. The depicted turbellarian shows its ability to move fast although temperatures are at about -1.5 deg C. Within the ice, they crawl along the surface of ice crystals in search of food. Footage courtesy of Rolf Gradinger, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Download largest version (mp4, 3.5 MB).
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