Shallow winter and summer macrofauna in a high Arctic fjord (79° N, Spitsbergen)

Abstract

Very little is known about benthic organisms surviving strategies in extreme winter conditions in polar areas. Most of the research conducted in Arctic has been carried out during the summer from depths available to research vessels. Our study is the first one conducted in winter within a high Arctic fjord at shallow depths. The main aim was to examine the patterns of diversity and community structure of shallow macrobenthos along the depth and distance-to-glacier gradients during winter in Kongsfjorden. The results are compared against reference sampling conducted during the summer. Samples were taken at four depth transects located along the shore of the fjord from the Kongsbreen glacier to the Ny-Ålesund settlement, in March 2009, when the fjord was frozen, with ice cover of 47 cm thickness and no signs of a phytoplankton bloom. The overall species abundance and biomass at shallow depths reached up to 11,800 ind. m -2 at 15 m and 180 gm -2 with over 120 taxa found in winter and another 26 taxa found in summer. Shallow benthic fauna stayed relatively stable throughout the year with carnivores and opportunistic species increasing in numbers during winter. The need for further studies on overwintering strategies of bottom fauna is stressed.

Diversity of hard-bottom fauna relative to environmental gradients in Kongsfjorden, Svalbard

“…The development of national and international research programmes (e.g., Swerpel & Weslawski 1989;Warwick et al 2003), better logistic infrastructure and the establishment of the Kings Bay Marine Laboratory (2005) resulted in considerable increase of research activity in Kongsfjorden. Several works containing zoobenthic species lists were published (Ambrose & Leinaas 1988;Hansen & Haugen 1989;Wlodarska-Kowalczuk et al 1998;Jørgensen & Gulliksen 2001;Lippert et al 2001;Kendall et al 2003;Weslawski et al 2003;Laudien et al 2004;Lippert 2004;Sahade et al 2004;Wessels et al 2004;Wlodarska-Kowalczuk & Pearson 2004;Bick & Arlt 2005;Kaczmarek et al 2005;McMahon et al 2006;Weslawski et al 2006;Wessels et al 2006;Carlsen et al 2007;Beuchel & Gulliksen 2008;Kedra et al 2011).…”

Ecosystem Kongsfjorden: new views after more than a decade of research

“…However, only few studies, such as Voronkov et al (2016), have included descriptions of communities on such locations in the Arctic, whereas this has been frequently done for soft-bottom communities (e.g. Wlodarska-Kowalczuk et al 1998;Kedra et al 2011). Thus, the focus of the study by Voronkov et al (2016) was to determine a limited number of characteristic zoobenthic communities that occupy Arctic shallow subtidal habitats (0-30 m depth) on hard-bottom locations in Kongsfjorden.…”

New species of Chaetozone and Tharyx (Polychaeta: Cirratulidae) from the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic and the Northeastern Pacific, including <br />a description of the lectotype of Chaetozone setosa Malmgren from Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Arctic

“…I consider this important because the current data on C. setosa provided by Chambers (2000), Blake (2006), and Doner & Blake (2006) do not fully address several characters now considered to be critical for separating different species of Chaetozone from one another. As an example, Kędra et al (2011) as part of an analysis of macrofauna from a Spitsbergen fjord, near the type-locality of C. setosa, elected to lump cirratulids, including what they believed to be C. setosa, into a general cirratulid category in their study because undescribed species were known to be present in the fauna. In addition to the eight new species of Chaetozone described in the present paper, numerous additional species are known from Europe, North and South America, Antarctica and deep-sea collections globally (Blake, unpublished; Doner, unpublished); in order to deal with these and additional taxa, it is crucial for comparative purposes to have as complete a description of the type species as possible.…”