Zones of high benthic biomass correspond with marginal ice zones: Barents, Kara, Laptev, East-Siberian and Chukchi seas, based on long-term Russian datasets

LifeLinkedtoIce Zones of high benthic biomass

The lines are “isolines”, meaning they connect areas with the same value of benthic biomass (left column) or ice concentration (right column). They are displayed the same way a topographic map shows elevation contours. For example, the area enclosed by the isoline labeled 500 in the map in the lower left hand corner has a biomass of 500 g/m2 or more. The zones with average long durations of 20% ice cover (right column) are polynyas and marginal ice zones associated with land-fast ice. Statistical analysis reveals that the zones of high biomass are significantly associated with the zones of long duration of ice-edge conditions.

 

Figure prepared for this report by S. Denisenko, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, based on archived data from 950 stations from scientific expeditions conducted 1932–1935, 1968–1970, 1975–1986 and 1993–1995. Ice concentration data from Schlitzer 2012 [173], calculated as 1960–1990 averages

 

Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) 

The data can be downloaded freely. Users are requested to reference the source.

Eamer, J., Donaldson, G.M., Gaston, A.J., Kosobokova, K.N., Lárusson, K.F., Melnikov, I.A., Reist, J.D., Richardson, E., Staples, L., von Quillfeldt, C.H. 2013. Life Linked to Ice: A guide to sea-ice-associated biodiversity in this time of rapid change. CAFF Assessment Series No. 10. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Iceland. ISBN: 978-9935-431-25-7.

 

 

173. Schlitzer, R. 2012. Ocean data view. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Available from http://odv.awi.de/.

 

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