ABSTRACT
The first published record of the life within Antarctic pack ice was that of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker in the pioneering voyages of HM Discovery ships erebus and terror in 1839 to 1843 (Hooker 1847). This followed the descriptions of dense growths of diatoms within Arctic pack ice by Ehrenberg (1841). Brown ice, coloured by the rich microbial assemblages it contains was subsequently logged by sealers and whalers who acknowledged higher biological activity in areas of the pack where brown ice was encountered. However, sea ice, which at its maximum extent can cover up to 13% of the Earth’s surface, has mostly been studied by engineers and ship builders interested in constructing ships capable of traversing frozen oceans or platforms that can withstand the pressures of ice fields. In the past 30 yr there has been a concerted effort to study the biology of pack ice, in particular the ecology of the microbial network that is fundamental to the ecology of seasonally ice-covered oceans and seas.
