Description: A compilation of jellyfish observations from various genera (Aurelia, Cyanea, Periphylla, Rhizostoma etc.) collected from 1790 to 2018. The area considered is the Northern Atlantic Ocean and sampling areas include the Mediterranean Sea, Celtic, Baltic and North Sea. This dataset is a collection of observations mostly retrieved from publications and therefore the sampling methods are various. The methods used include but are not limited to plankton net, bongo nets, collections from surface waters, trawls, hauls and buckets. Each observations listed in the dataset include the specific reference from which the data is collected from. This project was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement no. 774499) as part of GoJelly (work package 2: 'Driving mechanisms and predictions of jellyfish blooms')

Description: Understanding and responding to the rapidly occurring environmental changes in the Arctic over the past few decades require new approaches in science. This includes improved collaborations within the scientific community but also enhanced dialogue between scientists and societal stakeholders, especially with Arctic communities. As a contribution to the Third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARPIII), the Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART) network held an international workshop in France, in October 2014, in order to discuss high-priority requirements for future Arctic marine and coastal research from an early-career scientists (ECS) perspective. The discussion encompassed a variety of research fields, including topics of oceanographic conditions, sea-ice monitoring, marine biodiversity, land-ocean interactions, and geological reconstructions, as well as law and governance issues. Participants of the workshop strongly agreed on the need to enhance interdisciplinarity in order to collect comprehensive knowledge about the modern and past Arctic Ocean's geo-ecological dynamics. Such knowledge enables improved predictions of Arctic developments and provides the basis for elaborate decision-making on future actions under plausible environmental and climate scenarios in the high northern latitudes. Priority research sheets resulting from the workshop's discussions were distributed during the ICARPIII meetings in April 2015 in Japan, and are publicly available online.

Description: Thiamin (vitamin B1) is mainly produced by bacteria and phytoplankton and then transferred to zooplankton and higher trophic levels but knowledge on the dynamics of these processes in aquatic ecosystems is lacking. Hence, the seasonal variation in thiamin content was assessed in field samples of copepods and in pico-, nano- and micro-plankton of two size classes (0.7–3 µm and 〉 3 µm) collected monthly in the Baltic Sea during 3 years and in the Skagerrak during 1 year. Copepods exhibited species-specific concentrations of thiamin and Acartia sp. had the highest carbon-specific thiamin content, at both locations. Even members of the same genus, but from different systems contained different levels of thiamin, with higher thiamin content per specimen in copepods from the Skagerrak compared to congeners from the Baltic Sea. Furthermore, our results show that the small plankton (0.7–3 µm) had a higher carbon-specific thiamin content compared to the large (〉 3 µm). Additionally, there was a large seasonal variation and thiamin content was highly correlated comparing the two size fractions. Finally, there was an overall positive correlation between thiamin content in copepods and plankton. However, for periods of high thiamin content in the two size fractions, this correlation was negative. This suggests a decoupling between thiamin availability in pico-, nano- and micro-plankton and zooplankton in the Baltic Sea. Knowledge about concentrations of this essential micronutrient in the aquatic food web is limited and this study constitutes a foundation for further understanding the dynamics of thiamin in aquatic environments.

Description: Understanding and responding to the rapidly occurring environmental changes in the Arctic over the past few decades require new approaches in science. This includes improved collaborations within the scientific community but also enhanced dialogue between scientists and societal stakeholders, especially with Arctic communities. As a contribution to the Third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARPIII), the Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART) network held an international workshop in France, in October 2014, in order to discuss high-priority requirements for future Arctic marine and coastal research from an early-career scientists (ECS) perspective. The discussion encompassed a variety of research fields, including topics of oceanographic conditions, sea-ice monitoring, marine biodiversity, land-ocean interactions, and geological reconstructions, as well as law and governance issues. Participants of the workshop strongly agreed on the need to enhance interdisciplinarity in order to collect comprehensive knowledge about the modern and past Arctic Ocean's geo-ecological dynamics. Such knowledge enables improved predictions of Arctic developments and provides the basis for elaborate decision-making on future actions under plausible environmental and climate scenarios in the high northern latitudes. Priority research sheets resulting from the workshop's discussions were distributed during the ICARPIII meetings in April 2015 in Japan, and are publicly available online.

Description: The Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART) network in cooperation with the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and European Institute for Marine Science (IUEM) organized an international multidisciplinary science workshop “Integrating spatial and temporal scales in the changing Arctic System: towards future research priorities” (ISTAS) in October 2014. The workshop aimed at discussing future priorities of Arctic research from an early career scientists’ perspective. In total, 76 scientists from thirteen different countries participated in the workshop, 60% of them were early to mid-career researchers. In plenary and parallel sessions, trends and variability in the Arctic marine and coastal systems were reviewed over various spatial and temporal scales in order to better understand the presently changing Arctic system as a whole. Participants presented the newest results of their ongoing research, which eventually fed into comprehensive discussions on future Arctic research priorities on biological and physical oceanography, sea ice, marine biodiversity, land-ocean interactions, paleo-reconstruction and biological archives, as well as law and economics. Here we present the fact sheets, the main outcome of the workshop which highlights the research directions from the perspective of early career scientists. This is of great importance to ensure the involvement of the next generation of Arctic researchers and their contribution to the ICARP III process.

Description: Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly, simplifying access to oil and gas resources, enabling trans-Arctic shipping, and shifting the distribution of harvestable resources. This has brought the Arctic Ocean to the top of national and international political agendas. Alarmingly, sea-ice reductions are taking place more rapidly than predicted in any global climate model. This persistent mismatch between observed and predicted patterns makes planning and mitigation activities in the Arctic region even more complicated. Therefore, scientific knowledge of the present status of the Arctic Ocean and the process-based understanding of the mechanics of change are urgently needed to make useful predictions of future conditions throughout the Arctic region. Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART; http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/en/ART/) is a pan-Arctic scientific Network developed and steered by early-career scientists, which aims at studying the impact of environmental changes on the Arctic marine ecosystem. ART has a focus on bridging time-scales by incorporating paleo-studies with modern observations and modelling, science disciplines and geographic regions to better understand past and present response of Arctic marine ecosystems to sea ice transitions and climate change and to improve our predictive capability of future scenarios. Initiated as a continuation of the International Conference on Arctic Research Planning II (ICARP II) Marine Roundtable initiated in 2008, ART transited to a new status by becoming an official IASC Network in 2013. The first phase of ART (2010-2014) focuses on developing a formal network to bring together scientists working in different geographic and disciplinary areas who share a common interest in improving our understanding of Arctic change. The Second ART Science Workshop was held 21-24 October 2014 in Brest, France, in collaboration with the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) and the European Institute for Marine Studies. During this international workshop entitled “Integrating spatial and temporal scales in the changing Arctic System: towards future research priorities” (ISTAS) research priorities from an early to mid-career perspective were drafted which will feed into the third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III) in Toyama, Japan in 2015. This workshop brought together about 70 early career, mid-career and senior scientists from different Arctic research areas including marine, cryosphere, atmosphere, terrestrial, and socio-economic topics to ensure knowledge transfer across generations and disciplines. The second phase of ART (2014-2018) will be centered on active data collection, such as through the TRANSSIZ (Transitions in the Arctic Seasonal Sea Ice Zone) expedition, which is included in the cruise plan of the German RV ‘Polarstern’ in spring 2015. The final phase of ART will be a synthesis stage, so that the legacy of ART will be a coherent set of knowledge, which would feed into physical-biological models at various scales in order to develop more robust scenarios regarding the future state of Arctic coastal and marine ecosystems, their productive capacity, how they impact the dynamics of greenhouse gases, as well as their role in global processes.