Climate variability and possible effects on arctic food chains: The role of Calanus

Falk‐Petersen, Stig; Pavlov, Vladimir; Timofeev, Sergey F; Sargent, J. R.

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-48514-8_9

Cited by 150 publications

(135 citation statements)

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“…Their main prey is energy-rich Calanus spp. (Falk-Petersen et al 2007), but they also eat other lipid-rich zooplankter's that aggregate in upwelling areas (Lowry et al 2004;Walkusz et al 2012). Weslawski et al (2000) estimated, based on a conservative population estimate of 46,000 individuals, that bowhead whales consumed as much as four million tons of plankton per season from June to September in the Svalbard area at the peak of their abundance.…”

Section: Historical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We suggest that similar upwelling events bringing warm, nutrient-rich Atlantic Water to the surface along the shelf north of Svalbard have occurred in the past-leading to high levels of primary production. This has fueled a Calanus spp., lipid-based food chain (Falk-Petersen et al 2007, 2008, which was the basis for the large historical stock of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in the region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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At the rainbow’s end: high productivity fueled by winter upwelling along an Arctic shelf

et al. 2014

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Herein we document findings from a unique scientific expedition north of Svalbard in the middle of the polar night in January 2012, where we observed an ice edge north of 82°N coupled with pronounced upwelling. The area north of Svalbard has probably been ice-covered during winter in the period from approximately 1790 until the 1980s, a period during which heavy ice conditions have prevailed in the Barents Sea and Svalbard waters. However, recent winters have been characterized by midwinter open water conditions on the shelf, concomitant with northeasterly along-shelf winds in January 2012. The resulting northward Ekman transport resulted in a strong upwelling of Atlantic Water along the shelf. We suggest that a reduction in sea ice and the upwelling of nutrient-rich waters seen in the winter of 2012 created conditions similar to those that occurred during the peak of the European whaling period and that this combination of physical features was in fact the driving force behind the high primary and secondary production of diatoms and Calanus spp., which sustained the large historical stocks of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in Arctic waters near Spitsbergen.

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Section: Historical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

At the rainbow’s end: high productivity fueled by winter upwelling along an Arctic shelf

et al. 2014

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“…Arctic zooplankton, including C. glacialis and C. hyperboreus, are advected south from the Arctic Ocean into the northern Barents Sea, where they are an important component of the diets of fish and seabirds (Falk-Petersen et al, 2007;Dalpadado and Mowbray, 2013). Some of this water eventually passes around the southern tip of Spitsbergen as the Sørkapp Current, which then turns northward along the west coast of Spitsbergen (Fig.…”

Section: Impacts Of Advection On Zooplankton In the Arcticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advection in polar and sub-polar environments: Impacts on high latitude marine ecosystems

Hunt

Drinkwater

Arrigo

et al. 2016

Progress in Oceanography

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a b s t r a c tWe compare and contrast the ecological impacts of atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns on polar and sub-polar marine ecosystems. Circulation patterns differ strikingly between the north and south. Meridional circulation in the north provides connections between the sub-Arctic and Arctic despite the presence of encircling continental landmasses, whereas annular circulation patterns in the south tend to isolate Antarctic surface waters from those in the north. These differences influence fundamental aspects of the polar ecosystems from the amount, thickness and duration of sea ice, to the types of organisms, and the ecology of zooplankton, fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Meridional flows in both the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans transport heat, nutrients, and plankton northward into the Chukchi Sea, the Barents Sea, and the seas off the west coast of Greenland. In the North Atlantic, the advected heat warms the waters of the southern Barents Sea and, with advected nutrients and plankton, supports immense biomasses of fish, seabirds and marine mammals. On the Pacific side of the Arctic, cold waters flowing northward across the northern Bering and Chukchi seas during winter and spring limit the ability of boreal fish species to take advantage of high seasonal production there. Southward flow of cold Arctic waters into sub-Arctic regions of the North Atlantic occurs mainly through Fram Strait with less through the Barents Sea and the Canadian Archipelago. In the Pacific, the transport of Arctic waters and plankton southward through Bering Strait is minimal.In the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its associated fronts are barriers to the southward dispersal of plankton and pelagic fishes from sub-Antarctic waters, with the consequent evolution of Antarctic zooplankton and fish species largely occurring in isolation from those to the north. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current also disperses biota throughout the Southern Ocean, and as a result, the biota tends to be similar within a given broad latitudinal band. South of the Southern Boundary of the ACC, there is a large-scale divergence that brings nutrient-rich water to the surface. This divergence, along with more localized upwelling regions and deep vertical convection in winter, generates elevated nutrient levels throughout the Antarctic at the end of austral winter. However, such elevated nutrient levels do not support elevated phytoplankton productivity through the entire Southern Ocean, as iron concentrations are rapidly removed to limiting levels by spring blooms in deep waters. However, coastal http://dx

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“…For example, retreating sea ice may transform the present plankton community dominated by diatoms and large Calanus copepods to a less lipid rich system (11). This shift can negatively impact seabirds, baleen whales and other animals currently feeding on large, lipid-rich copepods (12). Moving the focus from species to functional traits, including traits related to lipid storage and transfer, can help to understand the mechanisms behind these changes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Climate warming drives large-scale changes in ecosystem function

Stige

Kvile

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The Barents Sea is the continental shelf sea to the north of Scandinavia and Northwest Russia and supports some of the richest fisheries in Europe. Until recently, the northern Barents Sea was dominated by small-sized, slow-growing fish species with specialized diets, mostly living in close association with the sea floor. Concomitant with rising sea temperatures and retreating sea ice, these fishes are being replaced by fast-growing, large-bodied generalists moving in from the south. In this week's issue of PNAS, Frainer et al. (1) document these changes and investigate consequences for ecosystem functioning, a topic of interest far beyond the Barents Sea.Global climate change leads to a poleward displacement of species, with the fastest responses occurring in the oceans, where there are fewer physical barriers to movement than on land (2). All species do not move at the same pace, however, and hence, new species configurations emerge. These alterations in biogeographic patterns have unknown consequences for ecosystem functioning and services. The emerging scientific field of functional biogeography addresses this knowledge gap by integrating biogeographic information on species distributions with information on how species affect ecosystem functioning (3). Functional biogeography focuses on the traits that describe the ecological roles of organisms -such as feeding type and body size of animals. Focusing on functional traits instead of species can provide new insights into how climate and other factors affect ecosystem functioning. For example, using functional biogeography to study forests on a global scale, Reich et al. (4) demonstrated that the proportion of plant biomass in foliage relative to roots was higher in warm compared to cold climate zones, with implications for how climate change may impact carbon storage in forest ecosystems. However, few studies prior to Frainer et al.'s (1) have used functional biogeography to investigate how climate change affects ecosystem functioning at large geographic scales in marine environments. Moreover, the study of Frainer et al. (1) is the first to do so in the Arctic. This research is particularly timely as some of the world's highest temperature increases in recent decades have occurred in the Arctic (5), and the region can be seen as an early indicator of global change.Based on abundance data from a bottom trawl survey conducted in the Barents Sea between 2004 and 2012, Frainer et al. (1) identified 52 fish species that could be described using 15 functional traits -including body size, longevity, fecundity, growth rate, habitat, diet characteristics and position in the food web. The authors first asked: what can the distribution of traits among species tell us about the Barents Sea fish community? They found that the majority of the species displayed traits typical of Arctic bottom fishes ("Arctic-like traits"): small body size, low growth rate and specialist diet mostly consisting of other organisms on the sea floor. Fishes with these traits were typically l...

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Climate variability and possible effects on arctic food chains: The role of Calanus

Cited by 150 publications

References 51 publications

At the rainbow’s end: high productivity fueled by winter upwelling along an Arctic shelf

At the rainbow’s end: high productivity fueled by winter upwelling along an Arctic shelf

Advection in polar and sub-polar environments: Impacts on high latitude marine ecosystems

Climate warming drives large-scale changes in ecosystem function

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