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Impact of warm water advection on the winter zooplankton community in an Arctic fjord

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Abstract

The west coast of Spitsbergen is influenced by water masses of Atlantic and Arctic origin. During the winter of January–April 2006, water temperatures on the West Spitsbergen Shelf were ∼3°C warmer than typical winter conditions, leading to a coastal sea ice cover of reduced thickness, extent and duration. A sediment trap deployed from September 2005 to May 2006 in the outer basin of Kongsfjorden (NW Spitsbergen) at a depth of 115 m has provided a continuous winter time-series of zooplankton during a period of rapid increase in water temperatures. Prior to an anomalous and prolonged influx of warm Atlantic water (AW) starting at the end of January, the trap samples were dominated by the boreo-Arctic copepod Metridia longa. Species that increased in abundance during the influx included late stages of Calanus finmarchicus, C. glacialis, C. hyperboreus and Paraeuchaeta norvegica. The early introduction of shelf populations into the fjord, and thus increased copepod biomass relative to typical winter conditions with little advection, has implications for the marine pelagic food web and pelagic-benthic coupling.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank C. Griffiths, P. Provost, E. Venable, and the crews of R. R. S. James Clark Ross and R. V. Lance for their assistance with the mooring deployments, and the R. R. S. James Clark Ross for transporting the trap samples to the UK. This work was funded by the SAMS-NERC Northern Seas Programme and is a contribution to MariClim, funded by the Norwegian Research Council under grant 165112/s30. Thanks also to the four anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kate J. Willis.

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Willis, K.J., Cottier, F.R. & Kwaśniewski, S. Impact of warm water advection on the winter zooplankton community in an Arctic fjord. Polar Biol 31, 475–481 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-007-0373-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-007-0373-0

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