Benthic responses to carbon inputs in the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic

The amount of phytodetritus from the euphotic zone reaching the sea floor in Arctic continental shelves, and the benthic response to that organic flux, is dependent on primary productivity regime, timing of pulsed deposition, and algal source.

Sediment communities in the Arctic can rapidly cycle newly-deposited phytoplankton; and there is some evidence that they also quickly process ice algae. How this remineralization is partitioned among different components of the benthic community (from bacteria to mobile megafauna) has been suggested to vary depending upon whether the system is oligotrophic or more meso-/eu- trophic.

To understand the role of the benthos in biogeochemical cycling in the Arctic, therefore, it is important to: determine how variability in phytodetrital flux to the sea floor at two Arctic sites affects the distribution of labile food in the sediments, and how different size classes of benthic fauna respond to food supply.

This study is the first to investigate these processes over the entire annual cycle at sites with different productivity regimes: the Beaufort Sea and the Barents Sea.

Financed by the U.S. National Science Foundation: Project OPP-0326371, “Benthic responses to seasonal carbon inputs: size-partitioned remineralization on two Arctic continental shelves.” Field cruises were conducted in cooperation with the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study (CASES)) and the Norwegian CABANERA project.

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