As Arctic sea ice deteriorates, more light enters the ocean, causing largely unknown effects on the ecosystem. Using an autonomous biophysical observatory, we recorded zooplankton vertical distribution under Arctic sea ice from dusk to dawn of the polar night. Here we show that zooplankton ascend into the under-ice habitat during autumn twilight, following an isolume of 2.4 × 10⁻⁴  ...

Environmental changes can rapidly alter standing biomass in tundra plant communities; yet, to what extent can they modify plant-community nutrient levels? Nutrient levels and their changes can affect biomass production, nutrient cycling rates and nutrient availability to herbivores. We examined how environmental perturbations alter Arctic plant-community leaf nutrient concentrations (percentage of ...

Particulate organic carbon (POC) produced in sea ice is often included in stable isotopic food web studies of polar seas as a single value of particulate organic matter (POM), i.e. ‘ice POM’. During 10 field trips to landfast ice off Alaska’s north coast, we examined the seasonal contribution of sea ice-associated meiofauna to total POM and the trophic structure within the sea ice using bulk carbon ...

Understanding how individual animals modulate their behaviour and movement patterns in response to environmental variability plays a central role in behavioural ecology. Marine mammal tracking studies typically use physical environmental characteristics that vary, and/or proxies of prey distribution, to explain predator movements. Studies linking predator movements and the actual distributions ...

The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic highlights our fragility when we are exposed to emergent viruses either directly or through zoonotic diseases. Fortunately, our knowledge of the biology of those viruses is improving. In particular, we have more and more structural information on virions, i.e., the infective form of a virus that includes its genomic material and surrounding protective capsid, and ...

The Arctic Ocean is characterized by pronounced seasonality in the quantity and quality of organic matter exported from the surface ocean. While it is well established that changes in food availability can alter the abundance, biomass and function of benthic organisms, the impact on food web structure is not well studied. We used bulk carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to assess the quantity ...

There is very little knowledge related to how floating windfarms effect the marine environment as this is such a new “product”. Thus, the data that we gathered on this cruise will be novel in that sense. The aim of the cruise was to look at possible effects of the windfarm on the marine environment. Based on limited cruise time and tough weather conditions around Hywind Tampen we had to be selective ...

The decrease in Arctic sea-ice extent and thickness as a result of global warming will impact the timing, duration, magnitude and composition of phytoplankton production with cascading effects on Arctic marine food-webs and biogeochemical cycles. Here, we elucidate the environmental drivers shaping the composition, abundance, biomass, trophic state and vertical flux of protists (unicellular eukaryotes), ...

There is an urgent need to understand and address the risks associated with a warming climate for ecosystems and societies in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. There are major gaps in our understanding of the complex effects of climate change—including extreme events, cascading impacts across ecosystems, and the underlying socioecological dynamics and feedbacks—all of which need collaborative efforts ...

With growing urbanization and increasing world population, energy demand also increases. A significant portion of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels, and these sources of energy are declining rapidly at the current consumption rate. There are also growing environmental concerns on the use of fossil fuels increasing greenhouse gas emissions. In this regard, renewable energy (RE) shows promising ...