<i>Introduction</i>: Biodiversity changes have proven surprisingly complex to estimate and understand. While there are negative trends at a global scale such as the substantial losses of vertebrate species (1), changes at local scales may show large variation, with no clear overall trend (2, 3). Because assessing and improving the status of biodiversity are at the core of international agreements ...

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 ...

This paper presents a technological solution for the observation and monitoring of the marine ecosystem. Three complementary devices, one optic imaging and one scientific acoustic instrument as well as one acoustic communication modem, have been integrated on glider platforms, providing qualitative and quantitative zooplankton and fish ecology observations, which are especially relevant in Nordic ...

Several decades of research on invasive marine species have yielded a broad understanding of the nature of species invasion mechanisms and associated threats globally. However, this is not true of the Arctic, a region where ongoing climatic changes may promote species invasion. Here, we evaluated risks associated with non-indigenous propagule loads discharged with ships' ballast water to the high-Arctic ...

The polar regions receive less solar energy than anywhere else on Earth, with the greatest year-round variation in daily light exposure; this produces highly seasonal environments, with short summers and long, cold winters. Polar environments are also characterised by a reduced daily amplitude of solar illumination. This is obvious around the solstices, when the Sun remains continuously above (polar ...

Bioluminescence commonly influences pelagic trophic interactions at mesopelagic depths. Here we characterize a vertical gradient in structure of a generally low species diversity bioluminescent community at shallower epipelagic depths during the polar night period in a high Arctic fjord with in situ bathyphotometric sampling. Bioluminescence potential of the community increased with depth to a peak ...

<p><i>Motivation</i>: The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community‐led open‐source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and ...

The ratio of habitat generalists to specialists in birds has been suggested as a good indicator of ecosystem changes due to e.g. climate change and other anthropogenic perturbations. Most studies focusing on this functional component of biodiversity originate, however, from temperate regions. The Eurasian Arctic tundra is currently experiencing an unprecedented combination of climate change, change ...

Climate warming is rapidly altering marine ecosystems towards a more temperate state on the European side of the Arctic. However, this “Atlantification” has rarely been confirmed, as long-term datasets on Arctic marine organisms are scarce. We present a 19-year time series (1982–2016) of diet samples from black-legged kittiwakes as an indicator of the changes in a high Arctic marine ecosystem ...

Ocean-based economic development arising from an increasing interest in the ‘blue economy’ is placing ecosystems and small-scale fisheries under pressure. The dominant policy response for dealing with multiple uses is the allocation of coastal space through coastal zone planning (CZP). Recent studies have shown that the rush to develop the blue economy and regulate coastal activity can result in ...