Location and Areal Extent of Polynyas in the Bering and Chukchi Seas

Stringer, W. J.; Groves, James

doi:10.14430/arctic1583

Cited by 64 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The simulated sea ice is significantly thinner along the southern coasts of the St. Lawrence (63.428N, 170.408W) and St. Matthew (60.428N, 172.758W) Islands than in the surrounding areas (Fig. 4), indicating the effects of winter polynya formations that are often observed in those coastal areas (e.g., Stringer and Grove 1991;Grebmeier and Cooper 1995). There are very few ice thickness measurements in the Bering Sea available for model validation.…”

Section: Model Results and Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea Ice Response to Atmospheric and Oceanic Forcing in the Bering Sea

Zhang

Woodgate

Moritz

2010

Journal of Physical Oceanography

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A coupled sea ice-ocean model is developed to quantify the sea ice response to changes in atmospheric and oceanic forcing in the Bering Sea over the period . The model captures much of the observed spatiotemporal variability of sea ice and sea surface temperature (SST) and the basic features of the upperocean circulation in the Bering Sea. Model results suggest that tides affect the spatial redistribution of ice mass by up to 0

show abstract

Section: Model Results and Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea Ice Response to Atmospheric and Oceanic Forcing in the Bering Sea

Zhang

Woodgate

Moritz

2010

Journal of Physical Oceanography

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, in July 2010 the region was characterized by widening and merging polynyas (U.S. National Ice Centre [http: //www.natice.noaa.gov), as is typical for this time of year (59), that would be more consistent with the surface waters having been ice free for much longer. Interestingly, no sea ice reads were placed with reference sequence MC5-1, a cultured bacterivorous strain isolated from sea ice in Antarctica (60).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeography of Heterotrophic Flagellate Populations Indicates the Presence of Generalist and Specialist Taxa in the Arctic Ocean

Thaler

Lovejoy

2015

Appl Environ Microbiol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Heterotrophic marine flagellates (HF) are ubiquitous in the world's oceans and represented in nearly all branches of the domain Eukaryota. However, the factors determining distributions of major taxonomic groups are poorly known. The Arctic Ocean is a good model environment for examining the distribution of functionally similar but phylogenetically diverse HF because the physical oceanography and annual ice cycles result in distinct environments that could select for microbial communities or favor specific taxa. We reanalyzed new and previously published high-throughput sequencing data from multiple studies in the Arctic Ocean to identify broad patterns in the distribution of individual taxa. HF accounted for fewer than 2% to over one-half of the reads from the water column and for up to 60% of reads from ice, which was dominated by Cryothecomonas. In the water column, many HF phylotypes belonging to Telonemia and Picozoa, uncultured marine stramenopiles (MAST), and choanoflagellates were geographically widely distributed. However, for two groups in particular, Telonemia and Cryothecomonas, some species level taxa showed more restricted distributions. For example, several phylotypes of Telonemia favored open waters with lower nutrients such as the Canada Basin and offshore of the Mackenzie Shelf. In summary, we found that while some Arctic HF were successful over a range of conditions, others could be specialists that occur under particular conditions. We conclude that tracking species level diversity in HF not only is feasible but also provides a potential tool for understanding the responses of marine microbial ecosystems to rapidly changing ice regimes. Heterotrophic flagellates (HF) have a central role in marine food webs, particularly in the Arctic, where they can control phytoplankton biomass (1). Modeling studies indicate that they likely consume the majority of bacterial biomass in this region (2). In other marine environments, they have been found to be more important than viral lysis (3) or ciliate grazers (4) for controlling bacterial concentrations. HF range from pico-to nanosized cells (0.8 to 20 m) and are phylogenetically diverse, with representatives in most branches of the Eukaryota tree. Because taxon-specific differences in feeding behavior, population dynamics, and life histories may be important over broad ecosystem scales (5), the identification and quantification of the diverse groups can add substantially to our understanding of marine ecosystem function. However, HF taxa often have few diagnostic morphological features that enable easy identification (6) and microscopy-based studies rarely differentiate between HF taxonomic groups. Molecular approaches, such as cloning and amplicon sequencing, have provided additional information on the deep phylogenetic diversity of HF, especially in the Arctic (7). More recently, highthroughput multiplex tag sequencing of hypervariable regions of the 18S rRNA gene has become commonplace (8, 9). This is considered a semiquantitative method for retrievin...

show abstract

“…Further seaward are predominantly muds containing minor proportions of gravel and sand (Naidu 1988). With the exception of a few disjointed polynyas within the inshore region (Stringer & Groves 1991), the Chukchi Sea shelf is covered with sea ice from November through June (Phillips & Reiss 1985a, b, Carey 1991.…”

Section: And the Annual Return Of Feeding Populations Of Walrus Odobementioning

confidence: 99%

The northeastern Chukchi Sea: benthos-environmental interactions

Feder¹,

Naidu²,

Jewett³

et al. 1994

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Benthic faunal abundance, diversity, and biomass were examined in the northeastern Chukchi Sea to determine factors influencing faunal distribution. Four taxon-abundance-based benthic station groups were identified by cluster analysis and ordination techniques. These groups are explained, using stepwise multiple discriminant analysis, by the gravel-sand-mud and water content of bottom sediments, and the organic carbon/nitrogen (OC/N) ratio. In contrast to previous benthic investigations in the northeastern Bering and southeastern Chukchi Seas, faunal diversity between inshore and offshore regions in our study area were not related to differences in sediment sorting. Instead, regional diversity differences in the northeastern Chukchi Sea were related to greater environmental stresses (e.g. ice gouging, wave-current action, marine-mammal feeding activities) inshore than offshore. The presence of a high benthic biomass north of Icy Cape in the vicinity of Point Franklin and seaward of a hydrographic front is presumably related to an enhanced local depositional flux of particulate organic carbon (POC) in the area. We postulate that POC-rich waters derived from the northern Bering and northwestern Chukchi Seas extend to our study area and the flux of the entrained POC provides a persistent source of carbon to sustain the high benthic biomass. Annual POC enrichment of the coastal region north of Icy Cape is reflected by the great abundance of amphipods and other invertebrates present there and the concentration in summer of walrus Odobenus rosmarus djvergens and gray whales Eschrichtius robustus that feed on these invertebrates. This study demonstrates that there can be high standing stocks of benthos in arctic regions with relatively low annual primary production if local carbon is augmented by POC advected from highly productive areas.

show abstract

Location and Areal Extent of Polynyas in the Bering and Chukchi Seas

Cited by 64 publications

References 12 publications

Sea Ice Response to Atmospheric and Oceanic Forcing in the Bering Sea

Sea Ice Response to Atmospheric and Oceanic Forcing in the Bering Sea

Biogeography of Heterotrophic Flagellate Populations Indicates the Presence of Generalist and Specialist Taxa in the Arctic Ocean

The northeastern Chukchi Sea: benthos-environmental interactions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About