Understanding the diversity and functioning of Arctic sea ice ecosystems is vital to evaluate and predict the impact of current and future climate change. In the microscopic communities inhabiting the brine channels inside sea ice, nematodes often dominate numerically and act as bacterivores and herbivores. Despite nematodes great abundances and known ecological roles, molecular tools have not been ...

Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) is an international partnership of research institutions studying the environment and climate in and around Svalbard. SIOS is developing an efficient observing system, where researchers share technology, experience, and data, work together to close knowledge gaps, and decrease the environmental footprint of science. SIOS maintains and facilitates ...

Arctic coastal ecosystems are rapidly changing due to climate warming. This makes modeling their productivity crucially important to better understand future changes. System primary production in these systems is highest during the pronounced spring bloom, typically dominated by diatoms. Eventually the spring blooms terminate due to silicon or nitrogen limitation. Bacteria can play an important role ...

<p>Background: Consistent individual differences in behaviour, known as animal personalities, have been demonstrated within and across species. In fish, studies applying an animal personality approach have been used to resolve variation in physiological and molecular data suggesting a linkage, genotype-phenotype, between behaviour and transcriptome regulation. In this study, using three fish species ...

Solar light/dark cycles and seasonal photoperiods underpin daily and annual rhythms of life on Earth. Yet, the Arctic is characterized by several months of permanent illumination (“midnight sun”). To determine the persistence of 24h rhythms during the midnight sun, we investigated transcriptomic dynamics in the copepod <i>Calanus finmarchicus</i> during the summer solstice period in the Arctic, with ...

Organisms use circadian rhythms to anticipate and exploit daily environmental oscillations. While circadian rhythms are of clear importance for inhabitants of tropic and temperate latitudes, its role for permanent residents of the polar regions is less well understood. The high Arctic Svalbard ptarmigan shows behavioral rhythmicity in presence of light-dark cycles but is arrhythmic during the polar ...

Optical constituents in the ocean are often categorized as water, phytoplankton, sediments and dissolved matter. However, the optical properties of seawater are influenced, to some degree, by scattering and absorption by all particles in the water column. Here we assess the relevant size ranges for determining the optical properties of the ocean. We present a theoretical basis supporting the hypothesis ...

Subglacial upwelling of nutrient-rich bottom water is known to sustain elevated summer primary production in tidewater-glacier-influenced fjord systems. However, the importance of subglacial upwelling during the early spring season has not been considered yet. We hypothesized that subglacial discharge under sea ice is present in early spring and that its flux is sufficient to increase phytoplankton ...

<p>In the Arctic, seasonal patterns in seawater biochemical conditions are shaped by physical, chemical, and biological processes related to the alternation of seasons, i.e. winter polar night and summer midnight sun. In summertime, CO₂ concentration is driven by photosynthetic activity of autotrophs which raises seawater pH and carbonate saturation state (Ω). In addition, restriction of ...

<p>Climate warming influences structure and function of Arctic benthic ecosystems. Assessing the response of these systems to perturbations requires long-term studies addressing key ecological processes related to recolonization and succession of species. Based on unique time-series (1980–2017), this study addresses successional patterns of hard-bottom benthos in two fjords in NW Svalbard after a ...