Опубликована Сен. 13, 2019

Ringed seals are a central component of the Arctic ecosystem; they have a circumpolar distribution and are both important predators of lower trophic animals (invertebrates and fishes) and prey for polar bears and coastal human populations. They depend on sea ice for reproduction, moulting and resting, and they consume significant amounts of ice-associated prey. The population of ringed seals in Svalbard, Norway, uses both coastal and offshore habitats, the latter being important during seasonal migrations undertaken by some animals, mostly juveniles. This study examined habitat preferences of 18 satellite-tracked ringed seals (mostly young animals, but also a few adults) during …

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Опубликована Июнь 24, 2019

We report the first satellite tracking of natal dispersal by an Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) between continents and High-Arctic ecosystems. A young female left Spitsbergen (Svalbard Archipelago, Norway) on 26 March 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 76 days later, after travelling a cumulative distance of 3506 km, bringing her ca. 1789 km away (straight-line distance) from her natal area. The total cumulative distance travelled during the entire tracking period, starting when she left her natal area on 1 March 2018 and ending when she settled on Ellesmere Island on 1 July 2018, was 4415 km. This is among …

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Опубликована Март 29, 2019

Dissolved organic carbon, from marine biota excretions and decomposing detritus, is one of the main components of the carbon cycle in the ocean. In this study, an attempt was made to construct maps of the distribution and fluxes of DOC in the Arctic Ocean and the exchanges with the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Because of the limited data available a multiple linear regression technique was performed to identify significant relationships between DOC (2200 samples) and hydrologic parameters (temperature and salinity), as well as depth, horizon, latitude and offshore distance. Mapping of the DOC distribution and its fluxes was carried out …

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Опубликована Ноя. 6, 2020

In August 2005, marine debris was counted on two Arctic beaches in the Russian Far East. On the north coast of the Chukchi Peninsula east of Kolyuchin Bay, a beach stretch of ca. 2.4 km held a total of 736 items, 0.024 items m‑2, while no more than 0.0011 items m‑2, 12 items in total, were found on a beach stretch of ca. 1.2 km on southern Wrangel Island. The likely explanation for this difference is that the area around the mainland beach is ice-free for a longer period each year, but a contributing factor may be that late spring …

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Опубликована Июнь 27, 2020

The Svalbard Airport composite series spanning the period from 1898 to the present represents one of very few long-term instrumental temperature series from the High Arctic. A homogenized monthly temperature series is available since 2014. Here we increase the resolution from a monthly to daily basis, and further digitization of historical data has reduced the uncertainty of the series. The most pronounced changes in the 120-year record occur during the last three decades. For the 1991–2018 period the number of days warmer than 0 and 5 °C has increased by 25 (21%) and 22 (59%), respectively, per year compared to …

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Опубликована Дек. 23, 2020

Food security is a complex topic defined not just by having enough nutritious food to eat but also by cost, safety and cultural considerations. In Arctic Inuit communities, food security is intimately connected to culture through traditional methods of harvesting country food. In Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut, community-based research was conducted in collaboration with Chesterfield Inlet community members using interviews and community engagement. Community members were consulted about the design of the interview guide, recruitment of participants, analysis and validation of results. This study aims to develop a theoretical framework of how food security, cultural continuity and community health and well-being …

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Опубликована Авг. 27, 2020

Chemical signatures in the calcite of shells of polar and subpolar planktonic foraminifera have been frequently used to trace and quantify past meltwater discharge events. This approach assumes that the foraminifera can tolerate low salinity under extended periods. To obtain a first experimental constraint on salinity tolerance of Subarctic foraminifera, we carried out a culturing experiment with specimens of the subpolar species Neogloboquadrina incompta collected in the northern Norwegian Sea off Tromsø in October 2018. The foraminifera were exposed to a gradient of salinities between 35 and 25 PSU. Survival was monitored over 26 days by measuring the extent of …

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Опубликована Ноя. 26, 2020

This paper examines the temporal and spatial change in the characteristics of sea-ice motion in the Arctic. Ice motion is generally expressed by a motion at a constant ratio (wind factor) of wind speed, with a certain angle (turning angle) from the wind direction, and ocean currents. This study aimed to reveal the recent changes of the wind factor and turning angle using satellite observation data. We first prepared a daily ice-velocity data set from data for 2003–2017 collected by the satellite microwave sensor Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) and its successor, AMSR2. Monthly values …

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Опубликована Июнь 8, 2020

In February 2019, during fieldwork at Harmony Point, Nelson Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, a large population of the rare liverwort Hygrolembidium isophyllum (Lepidoziaceae) was discovered. The occurrence of this rare species reinforces the need to preserve Antarctic Specially Protected Area 133.

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Опубликована Июнь 11, 2020

Humeri have been useful bones in taxonomic determinations of extinct penguins. In the context of neontological taxonomic studies, however, their potential remains unsatisfactorily explored. Here, the variation of the overall closed-outline shape of 60 humeri, assignable to five genera of extant penguins, was investigated. A set of normalized outlines was quantified via elliptical Fourier analysis and subjected to linear discriminant analysis on principal component scores extracted from harmonic coefficients. These geometric representations proved to be a source of easily extractable genus-level taxonomic information. The constructed model provided meaningful discrimination between taxa: the first two linear discriminants captured almost 90% of …

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