Publication Date:
2016-06-22
Description:
Arctic oceans are undergoing major changes in many of its fundamental physical constituents, such as shifts from
multi- to first-year ice and alterations in the distribution of water masses (Fig. 1). Such changes, often resulting
from anthropogenic stressors, have profound impacts on the chemical and biological processes that are at the root
of Arctic marine food webs, influencing their structure, function and biodiversity1,2. Yet, much research addressing
these on-going changes in the Arctic are limited to local scales or rather exploratory by nature, making it
imperative to better characterise and understand the structural and functional diversity of ecological systems that
contribute to the marine Arctic across larger scales3,4. We aim to offer more insight in the distributions and
abundance of macrobenthic species in Arctic seascapes, e.g. bivalves, polychaetes, and crustaceans that live in
marine soft bottoms. Building on recent pan-Arctic community data from 5000 locations, we address a
fundamental challenge in Arctic ecological research by employing quantitative models thus far not feasible,
enabling assessing spatial diversity patterns and link community organisation and ecosystem functioning.
Repository Name:
EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
Type:
Miscellaneous
,
notRev
,
info:eu-repo/semantics/other
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