Macrobenthos Distribution in the Laptev Sea in Relation to Hydrology

Zonation of the Laptev Sea landfast ice cover and its importance in a frozen estuary

“…Supply and dispersal of freshwater have a strong impact on the thermohaline circulation and sea-ice regimes over the shelves and in the Arctic Basin (Nikiforov et al, 1980;Aagaard and Carmack, 1989;Macdonald et al, 1995;Harms et al, 2000) and represent an important constraint for the marine ecology of Arctic shelves (Power, 1997;Petryashov et al, 1999). In turn, sea-ice processes in the river delta environment affect winter and spring freshwater dispersal as well as coastal evolution and hence constitute an important component of land-ocean interaction (Nalimov, 1995;Reimnitz, 2000).…”

Linkage of Arctic atmospheric circulation and Siberian shelf hydrography: A proxy validation using δ18O records of bivalve shells

“…It is the largest of the more abundant bivalves in the Laptev Sea and its habitat is characterized by a wide salinity range (between 10 and 34), and water depth range between 15 and 50 m (Gukov, 1999;Petryashov et al, 1999).…”

Last postglacial environmental evolution of the Laptev Sea shelf as reflected in molluscan, ostracodal, and foraminiferal faunas

“…Thus, P. arctica seems to be clearly restricted to the shallow areas offshore the river mouths and submarine valleys, where finegrained bottom sediments enriched in organic matter are dominant. Although found throughout the Laptev Sea (Richling, 2000), P. arctica is most common in the coastal zone affected by strong river runoff and salinity range from 18 to 30, where it is the dominant species of a homonymous macrobenthic community (Sirenko et al, 1995;Petryashov et al, 1999). Leionucula bellotii is especially abundant in coretop samples from the eastern mid-shelf in water depths from 30 to 50 m ( Table 3).…”

“…In the mid-shelf region, where icefree leads (flaw polynya) usually form in wintertime (Dmitrenko et al, 2001b) separating the fast ice from the region with drift ice, this process is pronounced all year around (Wegner, 2003). Specific hydrological, cryological, and depositional conditions in this part of the eastern Laptev Sea shelf seem to affect the distribution of both plankton and benthos (Petryashov et al, 1999;Gukov, 1999;Bauch and Polyakova, 2000).…”

“…Based on previously obtained data, the distribution of modern benthic organisms over the Laptev Sea shelf was shown to be strongly related to certain environmental parameters, notably water depth and salinity (Tamanova, 1971;Sirenko et al, 1995;Bude, 1997;Gukov, 1998;Petryashov et al, 1999;Stepanova et al, 2003). Studies of the late Pleistocene-Holocene assemblages of foraminifers, ostracods, and molluscs have been carried out on the shelves and uplifted coasts of other arctic and highlatitudinal seas (see for example Cronin, 1977;Vilks et al, 1979;Lev, 1983;McDougall et al, 1986;Brouwers, 1988;Syvitski et al, 1989;McDougall, 1994;Kupriyanova, 1999;Gordillo and Aitken, 2001).…”