SynthesisNature ecology & evolution2019
A global synthesis of biodiversity responses to glacier retreat.
Synthesis in Nature ecology & evolution, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Synergistic effects of advantageous agronomic measures and sensitive environmental factors on the carbon footprint of crop production based on a meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Pooled it
- Using environmental DNA to identify emerging Pacific salmon habitats and support Indigenous governance.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Elevation-structured viral ecological strategies along glacier-fed rivers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Glacier retreat shapes organic nutrient availability across lake succession.Science advances · 2026Article
- The Biodiversity of Retreating Glaciers Leaves an Ecological Legacy in Emerging Soil Communities.Global change biology · 2026Article
- 16S rRNA amplicon metabarcoding dataset from a retreating glacier forefield in the high tropical andes.Data in brief · 2026Article
- Metagenomic analysis of bacterial diversity, antibiotic resistance, and functional profiles in the ice core samples from two glaciers of Sikkim Himalaya.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Spatial and temporal variability of supraglacial algae on an Alpine glacier (Forni Glacier, Italy).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Metabolically flexible microorganisms rapidly establish glacial foreland ecosystems.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Glaciers in California's Sierra Nevada are likely disappearing for the first time in the Holocene.Science advances · 2025Article
- Determinism and stochasticity drive microbial community assembly and microbial interactions in calcareous glacier forefields.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Regime shift to extensive valley glaciations over High Mountain Asia during the Early-Middle Pleistocene.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Plants' Contributions to People Shift With Glacier Extinction.Plant-environment interactions (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Article
- The global distribution patterns of alien vertebrate richness in mountains.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Dual-Domain Primary Succession of Bacteria in Glacier Forefield Streams and Soils of a Maritime and Continental Glacier.Microbial ecology · 2025Article
- Globally scalable glacier mapping by deep learning matches expert delineation accuracy.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Mapping the metagenomic diversity of the multi-kingdom glacier-fed stream microbiome.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- The impact of elevated COiScience · 2024Article
- (Dis)connecting the Globe Through Water-Driven Ecological and Biogeochemical Corridors in the Polar-Alpine Biome.Global change biology · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Glaciers cover about 10% of the Earth's land area but they are retreating rapidly and many will disappear within decades. Glacier retreat is a worldwide phenomenon increasing the threat to water resources, biodiversity and associated ecosystem services for hundreds of millions of people, mostly in developing countries. Our understanding of the ecological consequences of glacier retreat has improved significantly in the past decade, but we still lack a comprehensive framework for predicting biodiversity responses to glacier retreat globally, across diverse habitats and taxa. By conducting a global meta-analysis of 234 published studies, including more than 2,100 biodiversity surveys covering marine, freshwater and terrestrial assemblages, we show here that taxon abundance and richness generally increase at lower levels of glacier influence, suggesting that diversity increases locally as glaciers retreat. However, significant response heterogeneity was observed between study sites and species: 6-11% of the studied populations, particularly in fjords, would lose out from glacier retreat. Most of the losers are specialist species, efficient dispersers, uniquely adapted to glacial conditions, whereas the winners are generalist taxa colonizing from downstream. Our global analyses also identify key geographic variables (glacier cover, isolation and melting rates, but not latitude or altitude) and species traits (body size and trophic position) likely to modulate taxon sensitivity to glacial retreat. Finally, we propose mechanistic diagrams for model development to predict biodiversity change following glacier retreat.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.