Pagon

Pagon

 

the aggregate of organisms contained in the ice covering a body of water; the organisms are usually in a state of anabiosis. Inside the ice, especially that part closest to the water, the temperature does not go below – 1°C, thus ensuring the viability of organisms frozen in the ice. In middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere about 150 species have been discovered in the pagon (plants, protozoans, rotifers, water bears, mollusks, crustaceans, insect larvae). Pagons were first described by S. A. Zernov in 1928.