Climate swings and ecosystem effects
by
Stig Falk-Petersen, professor, dr. philos Norwegian Polar Institute
Krenkel, Papanin, Shirshov, Federov
The effect of climate variability on marine biological systems, the Calanus complex
Arctic Calanus:
The most important animals in high latitude seas because they converts low energy sugar to high energy animal fat
Why do we have 3 Calanus species in the Arctic? They are all:
•efficient herbivores
•high total lipid 50-70%
Diatoms and Calanus
The Cenozoic record of diatoms and the appearance of the copepod super families with myelin-sheathed nerve fibres and short lived, none feeding males
(Calanus) appeared 65 MYA coincides with
Expansion of the polar ice cap, cooling of the ocean, increased wind, thermohaline circulation, turbulent mixing, seasonality of production
i.e. Strongly pulsed primary production
The Norwegian Atlantic Currents – natural variability over the last 3000
years (from Nalan Koc)
Little Ice Age
Holocene Cold Period I Holocene
Warm Period I Medieval
Warm Period
Holocene Warm Period II
1.5°C
To day
Little ice edge - 1.5 o C colder in 10-years
74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83
1580 1600 1620 1640 1660 1680 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 Year
Latitude
Record northerly (82°N) location of the ice edge in autumn 2004, not observed since 1751
2004
*
Vinje 1999, Falk-Petersen et al. 2007
Environmental variability (ice cover) exists on all time scales: days, decades, centennial and
geological scales
Effect on:
• Light
• The total primary production
• The timing of the Arctic bloom
• Geographical area of the production
The pulsed Arctic bloom is important for :
• Accumulating large lipid reserves
• Lifecycles strategy
• Development biology
The concept of Arctic plankton blooms
(blooms occurs at the retreating ice edge and in leads as the ice melts)
Falk-Petersen et al 2007
The Arctic Calanus
The genus Calanus is engineered to:
1) feed on pulses of energy
2) convert low energy sugars to a high energy lipids 3) store energy in strongly pulsed systems
(This is further support by the development of specialized biosynthetic pathways for wax ester formation)
but
Why three species?
The Arctic climate variability has created three ecological niches for herbivores
Life cycle strategy
1. Life span
2. Growth of the different copepodite stages
The current system in the Arctic.
3. Core over wintering areas for C. finmarchicus, C. glacialis and C. hyperboreus
The three species are adapted to the timing of the bloom
• Calanus finmarchicus is a deep-water species adapted to a regular yearly spring bloom => the Norwegian Sea.
• Calanus glacialis is a shelf species adapted to large
variations in the timing and length of the annual bloom
=> northern Barents Sea, Siberian and American shelves.
• Calanus hyperboreus is a deepwater species adapted to large inter-annual variations in ice cover and algal
blooms => central Arctic Ocean, Greenland Sea and Fram Strait.
The Arctic Calanus herbivores has adapted to climate variability in the Arctic:
• as genus by accumulate energy reserves (lipids). The
Arctic Calanus species are herbivores designed to feed on the Arctic diatom blooms
• as species / populations by developing different life
strategy. Timing of the bloom determines the life strategy of the individual species and biodiversity of the Calanus complex
We hypotheses that:
the European Arctic ecosystem will switch between a C. finmarchicus and a C.glacialis / C.hyperboreus system dependent on the climate mode
Energy level and size spectrum of Calanus as prey
• C. hyperboreus is 2 times larger than C.
finmarchicus
• Calanus hyperboreus has 26 and C. glacialis 10 times as much energy as C. finmarchicus, per individual
Climate swings and ecosystem effects on Little Auk
The sampling sites and the location of the little auk colony
Steen et al. 2007
Abundance of the three species Calanus hyperboreus, C. glacialis and C. finmarchicus at the four stations in
Isfjorden.
.
0 40 80 120 160 Ind. m-3
CI CII CIII CIV CV AF
C. finmarchicus C. glacialis C. hyperboreus
0 100 200 300 400 Ind. m-3
CI CII CIII CIV CV AF
0 50 100 150 200 Ind. m-3
CI CII CIII CIV CV
D1 AF D3
D5 D7
0 40 80 120
Ind. m-3 CI
CII CIII CIV
CV AF
Steen et al. 2007, 27th of July 2005
Frequency of occurrence of prey species in gular pouch
Two diets groups: on containing less than 25% C. hyperboreus (19) and those containing more (5).
Bold, prey items that occur in 10% or more
Diets with less than 25% C.
hyperboreus
Diets with less than 25% C.
hyperboreus
Species Mean SE Mean SE
Calanus finmarchicus CV 0.051 0.018 0.004 0.004
Calanus glacialis CIV 0.006 0.002 0.007 0.007
Calanus glacialis CV 0.571 0.056 0.144 0.019
Calanus glacialis female 0.018 0.002 0.008 0.004
Calanus hyperboreus CIV 0.003 0.002 0.018 0.008
Calanus hyperboreus CV 0.014 0.008 0.407 0.035
Calanus hyperboreus female 0.007 0.003 0.286 0.052
Themisto abyssorum 0.176 0.048 0.029 0.021
Steen et al. 2007
Minutter id 36517 bjørndalen
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
23.7. 25.7. 27.7. 29.7. 31.7. 2.8. 4.8. 6.8.
Date
Minutes away(trip time)
Minutter
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
10-30 60 120 180 240 300 360 420 480 >480
Minutes
Number
36517 35ef1 36a3 569a
An example of trips of 1 bird.
Hatch d 11 July
Duration of foraging trips,
4 birds
Steen et al. 2007
C.hyp CIV-CVI %
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
0 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 100
Percen C hyp in diet Number of gular pouches with C.hyp CIV-CVI %
Calanus hyperboreus in the gular pouch
Ratio of long to short trips 1: 5.2
5 of 24 contained large C. hyperboreus
During the long trips (12 hrs) they can reach the shelf By chance?
Conclusion
• We show for the first time bimodal foraging trip for an alcid species
• Food for chicks close to colony
• Lack of suitable prey items close to colony to meet energy needs for the parents
• Flexible foraging strategy evolved to a highly variable environment
The Arctic food chain depends on Calanus species at the base
Falk-Petersen et al. 2007
Arts and science
Arts and science on Severnyj Poljus
Long term Arctic zooplankton studies
Table 1. Contributing institutions and the number and status of available data. Number of samples available exceeds the number of stations as several stations are sampled with a depth resolution. Contact persons at the different institutions are also given.
Institutions Number of stations
Status Format Supporting data Contact person
NPI 451 Analysed Database Temperature,
Salinity
S. Falk- Petersen
UNIS 65 Analysed Database with
NP
Temperature, Salinity
K. Eiane
APN 16 Partly analysed Excel Temperature,
Salinity
G. Pedersen
NCFS/Shirshov 109 Analysed Excel Temperature,
Salinity,
pigments, carbon
M. Reigstad
MMBI 278 Analysed Unknown
spreadsheet
Temperature, Salinity
Need new contact after S. Timofeev
PINRO 1486 250 analysed to
species, stage, abundance
Excel Temperature, Salinity
Emma Orlova
The seasonal distribution of sampling in the
different regions .
Distribution of stations covered by PINRO, from 2002.
10° 20° 30° 40° 50° 60° 70°
68°
70°
72°
74°
76°
78°
80°
82°
2002
The SINMOD model
Coupled physical – biological model.
Nested into the 20 km model is the large 4 km grid area (black rectangle) which
in turn provides boundary conditions for the main 4 km/800 m model (grey rectangle).
Arctic deep water
Arctic shelf water
North Atlantic
Calanus spp.
Primarily herbivore (Conover et al. 1991, Scott et al. 2000)
Key link between primary producers and higher trophic levels
Experience strong seasonality in food supply
Overwinter at depth, hibernating (diapause), utilising lipid reserves from previous summer
% ABUNDANCE
Zooplankton communities, food web structures and sympagic-pelagic coupling in the Svalbard-Barents Sea Marginal Ice Zone
BIOMASS
C. finmarchicus C. glacialis
C. hyperboreus
(0.3 – 8.7 g DW m-2)
(0.1 – 30.6 g DW m-2)
(0.1 – 2.6 g DW m-2)
32 g
28 g
0.5 g
10 g
Paper V
The Ice Edge Programme
The Statoil Ice edge programme
• Ecological and ecotoxicological studies of ice amphipods
• Microbial degradation of carbon
• Arctic primary production
• Ecology of the key fish species Leptoclinus maculates
• Effect of oil on Arctic Calanus and Ice Amphipods
CLEOPATRA – Climate effects on planktonic food quality and trophic transfer in Arctic Marginal Ice Zones
• The effect of PAR and UV on the quality of the phytoplankton
• Timing of seasonal migration and spawning of C. glacialis
Increase in size of Calanus versus lipid sac volume (increas in prosome of .5 mm increases the oil volume
2.8 times
Daniel Vogedes
