Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) play a crucial role as a key species in Arctic marine ecosystems. The importance of successful feeding of particularly their sensitive early life stages for survival and later recruitment into the adult population is known. This study investigated the diets of age-0 polar cod in the Greenland Sea (Northeast Greenland) during the summer and fall of 2017, focusing on ...

Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) are central place foragers during their breeding season in the austral summer, which restricts the distance and duration they can forage away from their chicks. Recent studies indicate a regional decline in chinstrap penguin populations across their distribution range. During breeding, they almost exclusively feed on Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), a ...

Microbial assemblages under the sea ice of the Dease Strait, Canadian Arctic, were sequenced for metagenomes of a small size fraction (0.2–3 μm). The community from early March was typical for this season, with Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria as the dominant taxa, followed by Thaumarchaeota and Bacteroidetes. Toward summer, Bacteroidetes, and particularly the genus Polaribacter, became increasingly ...

Marine ecosystems are experiencing growing pressure from multiple threats caused by human activities, with far-reaching consequences for marine food webs. Determining the effects of multiple stressors is complex, in part, as they can affect different aspects of biological organisation (behaviour, individual traits and demographic rates). Determining the combined effects of stressors, through different ...

Ecosystems are subjected to increasing exposure to multiple anthropogenic drivers. This has led to the development of national and international accounting systems describing the condition of ecosystems, often based on few, highly aggregated indicators. Such accounting systems would benefit from a stronger theoretical and empirical underpinning of ecosystem dynamics. Operational tools for ecosystem ...

Heathlands are extensive systems often dominated by slow-growing and long-lived woody plants. These systems require longer-term studies to capture if and how they are changing over time. In 2020, we resurveyed species richness and cover of vascular plant communities in 139 heathlands along the coastline of northern Fennoscandia, first surveyed during 1965–1975. The first survey included six ...

Monitoring programs that integrate both structural and functional ecosystem components play integral roles in ecosystem management and conservation planning. In the early 1990’s, the marine ecosystem of the waters surrounding Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) underwent a regime shift. Several demersal and pelagic fish stocks collapsed simultaneously, and this had significant ecological and socioeconomic ...

Fungi can be found in every marine habitat, but our knowledge about their diversity, function, and potential is still limited Studies show that marine fungi play an important role in ecosystems by contributing to nutrient cycling and forming symbiotic relationships with marine organisms. Saccharina latissima, also known as sugar kelp, is a brown algae with a circumpolar distribution in the Northern ...

Globally, non-indigenous species (NIS) are increasing in both number and distribution. Sometimes NIS are intentionally introduced to provide food or financial gain. If NIS are moved to a new environment without their competitors, predators and parasites they may gain an advantage over native species. This is explained by the enemy release hypothesis, which also includes parasites, as NIS might lose ...

Increased knowledge about marine mammal seasonal distribution and species assemblage from the South Orkney Islands waters is needed for the development of management regulations of the commercial fishery for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in this region. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) data were collected during the autumn and winter seasons in two consecutive years (2016, 2017), which ...