Objective
The deep water ecosystem of the White Sea is exposed to perennial Arctic water temperatures and covered by winter sea ice. It will be studied as an example of Arctic seas emphasizing the relationships between the different sub-systems (coupling of ice biota, pelagos and benthos) and focussing on the question, how a presumably oligotrophic deep water fauna is sustained and regulated by input of particulate organic matter during the limited productive season.
For this, the whole biotic system will be analysed from spring till autumn (primary producers including ice-algae, pelagic consumers including remineralising micro-organisms, larger copepods and near-bottom zooplankton, and the main macro-and meio-benthos groups). Oceanographic conditions and plant nutrients will be monitored, and the vertical particle flux be measured by short and longer term exposures of sediment traps. Benthic responses to food input will be investigated by life cycle analyses (e.g. gonad maturation, spawning and spat fall of macrofauna), composition of the meiofauna (e.g. dominances of different feeding types) and also changes in diversity patterns. The overall benthic respiration (oxygen uptake rates) will be obtained from sediment core incubations, which will allow estimates of remineralisation activities of the bulk small fauna and micro-organisms. From these measurements and consumption estimates of the larger animals from their biomass and laboratory/literature data about metabolic rates, benthic budgets of energy flow will be derived. The benthic demands will be compared with the data obtained about primary production, pelagic consumption and from the vertical fluxes estimated by the sediment trap exposures. As the White Sea is well accessable even during winter, additional studies (e.g. on ice organisms and on winter metabolism of selected bottom fauna) are intended to better understand biological activities during the non-productive season. Such data as well as investigations of the entire ecosystem during the whole productive season are lacking for Arctic seas, for which the Deep water White Sea system will be regarded as a model.
Topic(s)
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27515 Bremerhaven
Germany