The traditional view is that the Arctic polar night is a quiescent period for marine life, but recent reports of high levels of feeding and reproduction in both pelagic and benthic taxa have challenged this. We examined the zooplankton community present in Svalbard fjords, coastal waters, and the shelf break north of Svalbard, during the polar night. We focused on the population structure of abundant ...

Reproductive rates of copepods are temperature-dependent, but poorly known for small copepods at low temperatures, hindering the predictions of population dynamics and secondary production in high-latitude ecosystems. We investigated egg hatching rates, hatching success and egg production of the small copepods <i>Oithona similis</i> and <i>Microsetella norvegica</i> (sac spawners) and <i>Microcalanus ...