Continental slopes – steep regions between the shelf break and abyssal ocean – play key roles in the climatology and ecology of the Arctic Ocean. Here, through review and synthesis, we find that the narrow slope regions contribute to ecosystem functioning disproportionately to the size of the habitat area (∼6% of total Arctic Ocean area). Driven by inflows of sub-Arctic waters and steered by topography, ...

Benthic communities change drastically in both biomass and community structure with increasing water depth on a global scale, attributed to a combination of food supply, environmental drivers, as well as physiological and competitive capacities. In the Arctic, benthic biogeographic patterns are additionally thought to be a result of the region’s glaciation history. Here, we investigate gross epibenthic ...

The large declines in Arctic sea-ice age and extent over the last decades could have altered the diversity of sea-ice associated unicellular eukaryotes (referred to as sea-ice protists). A time series from the Russian ice-drift stations from the 1980s to the 2010s revealed changes in community composition and diversity of sea-ice protists from the Central Arctic Ocean. However, these observations ...

Alaskan Arctic shelf communities are currently experiencing dramatic changes that will likely affect ecosystem functioning of Arctic marine benthic communities. Here, functional diversity based on biological traits was used to assess differences and similarities in ecosystem functioning between 2 shelf systems that are geographically close but vary in many environmental influences: the Arctic Beaufort ...

Oil production in Arctic ice-covered areas poses a risk for pollution of the ecosystem including that within the brine channel network of sea ice. Sea-ice autotrophs contribute substantially to Arctic primary production, but are inherently difficult to test for oil exposure responses in situ. This study had two objectives, first, we developed a suitable lab-based mesocosm system, second, we tested ...

<i>Introduction</i>: Main purpose of this group is data exploration. For example, megafaunal community characterization, modeling of variables that influence these communities (environment, stressors, etc.). Scaling of data matters: Depending on the objectives, required resolution of the data and analyses will vary, e.g. for managing trawl closures, fine-scale analyses are required; for understanding ...

Pelagic larval stages (meroplankton) of benthic invertebrates seasonally make up a significant proportion of planktonic communities, as well as determine the distribution of their benthic adult stages, yet are frequently overlooked by both plankton and benthic studies. Within the Arctic, the role of meroplanktonic larvae may be particularly important in regions of inflow from sub-Arctic regions, ...

To reach the goal of large-scale seaweed cultivation in Norway and the rest of Europe, new knowledge about the commercially important kelp species <i>Saccharina latissima</i> is needed. Efforts to maximise biomass by outplanting the seaweed in different seasons can affect seaweed quality. Here, we investigate the effects of outplanting time (February, April, and May) when cultivating <i>S. latissima</i> ...

The marine area of Northeast Greenland belongs to the largest national park in the world. Biodiversity assessments and tailored conservation measures often target specific physiographic or oceanographic features of an area for which detailed knowledge on their biological communities is incomplete. This study, therefore, characterizes epibenthic megafauna communities in a priori defined seabed habitats ...

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 ...