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Rising temperatures and sea-ice-free winters affect the succession of Arctic macrozoobenthic soft-sediment communities (Kongsfjorden, Svalbard)

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Abstract

In the Arctic, the currently observed rising air temperature results in more frequent calving of icebergs. The latter derive from tidewater glaciers. Arctic macrozoobenthic soft-sediment communities are considerably disturbed by direct hits and sediment reallocation caused by iceberg scouring. With the aim to describe the primary succession of macrozoobenthic communities following these events, scientific divers installed 28 terracotta containers in the soft-sediment off Brandal (Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, Norway) at 20 m water depth in 2002. The containers were filled with a bentonite–sand mixture resembling the natural sediment. Samples were taken annually between 2003 and 2007. A shift from pioneering species (e.g. Cumacea: Lamprops fuscatus) towards more specialised taxa, as well as from surface detritivores towards subsurface detritivores was observed. This is typical for an ecological succession following the facilitation and inhibition succession model. Similarity between experimental and non-manipulated communities from 2003 was significantly highest after 3 years of succession. In the following years, similarity decreased, probably due to elevated temperatures, which prevented the fjord system from freezing. Some organisms, numerically important in the non-manipulated community (e.g. the polychaete Dipolydora quadrilobata) did not colonise the substrate during the experiment. This suggests that the community had not fully matured within the first 3 years. Later, the settlement was probably impeded by consequences of rising temperatures. This demonstrates the long-lasting effects of severe disturbances on Arctic macrozoobenthic communities. Furthermore, environmental changes, such as rising temperatures coupled with enhanced food availability due to an increasing frequency of sea-ice-free days per year, may have a stronger effect on succession than exposure time.

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Acknowledgments

This research was performed at the Ny-Ålesund International Research and Monitoring Facility on Spitsbergen (Svalbard). There, the AWIPEV facility, provided by the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Institut polaire Français—Institut Paul Émile Victor (IPEV), was used. We would like to express our appreciation to the cold water adapted scientific diving group of the AWI for assistance during the installation and sampling of the experimental set-up, especially Tilman Alpermann, Michael Assmann, Saskia Brandt, Claudia Daniel, Marko Herrmann, Stephan Kremb, Uli Kunz, Robert Marc Lehmann, Nick Probst, Philipp Schubert, Max Schwanitz, Marcos Tatián, Gritta Veit-Köhler, Jose Velez and Hendrik Wessels. We are also very grateful to Anders Warén and Gritta Veit-Köhler who supported the identification of molluscs. Moreover, we would like to thank Ramona Brunner, Ruth Alheit and Georgia Mc Dowell who greatly helped by proof-reading the manuscript, as well as Michael Greenacre and four anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript. Finally, we are grateful for financial support by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to cover travel costs for research students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Bibliothekstraße 1, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Christopher A. Nowak

  2. Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, P.O. Box 120161, 27515, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Jürgen Laudien

  3. Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal (IDEA), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Av. Vélez Sársfield 299, 5000 Córdoba, Argentina

    Ricardo J. Sahade

  4. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Av. Vélez Sarsfield 299, 5000 Córdoba, Argentina

    Ricardo J. Sahade

Authors
  1. Christopher A. Nowak
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  2. Jürgen Laudien
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  3. Ricardo J. Sahade
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Correspondence to Jürgen Laudien.

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This article belongs to the special issue on the “Kongsfjorden ecosystem—new views after more than a decade of research”, coordinated by Christian Wiencke and Haakon Hop.

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Nowak, C.A., Laudien, J. & J. Sahade, R. Rising temperatures and sea-ice-free winters affect the succession of Arctic macrozoobenthic soft-sediment communities (Kongsfjorden, Svalbard). Polar Biol 39, 2097–2113 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-016-1995-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-016-1995-x

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