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Distribution and composition of the epibenthic megafauna north of Svalbard (Arctic)

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Abstract

Benthic communities north of Svalbard are less investigated than in other Arctic shelf regions, as this area was covered by sea-ice during most of the year. Improving our knowledge on this region is timely, however, since climate change is strongly evident there, particularly with regard to the extent of sea-ice decline and its huge ecological impact on all marine biota, including the benthos. Moreover, longer ice-free periods will certainly lead to an increase in human activity levels in the area, including bottom trawling. In two adjacent shelf and slope regions off northern Svalbard, we studied the composition of epibenthic megafauna and seafloor habitat structures by analyzing seabed images taken with both still and video cameras. In addition, we also used an Agassiz trawl to catch epibenthic organisms for ground-truthing seabed-image information. A wide variety of mostly sessile organisms 141 epibenthic taxa were identified in the images. The brittle star Ophiura sarsii and the soft coral Gersemia rubiformis were the most common species. At all stations >300 m in depth, evidence of trawling activities was detected at the seabed. The distribution of the benthic fauna in the study area exhibited a clear depth zonation, mainly reflecting depth-related differences in seabed composition. We conclude that natural factors determining the composition of the seafloor mostly affect the distribution and composition of epibenthic assemblages. Anthropogenic impact indicated by the trawl scours found is likely also important at smaller spatial scales.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the helping hands from Greenpeace, the Institute for Polar Ecology of the University of Kiel (Germany), the University Centre of Svalbard (UNIS) (Norway) and the students from UNIS course AB-321, as well as the University of Tromsø (Norway) and Akvaplan-NIVA (Norway). We are especially grateful to the scientists helping us with identifying the organisms and providing information on the region around Svalbard, especially J. Berge, T. Brattegard, S. Cochrane, P. Kuklinski, A. Plotkin, P. Renaud, A.H. Tandberg and M. Włodarska-Kowalczuk. The study was funded by Greenpeace (Germany). Finally, we would like to thank the three reviewers who provided very valuable advice that helped a lot in the revision of the original manuscript.

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  1. M. Sswat

    Present address: GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Polar Ecology, Institute for Ecosystem Research, University of Kiel, 24118, Kiel, Germany

    M. Sswat & D. Piepenburg

  2. Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, University of Tromsø, 9037, Tromsö, Norway

    B. Gulliksen

  3. Greenpeace Germany, 20457, Hamburg, Germany

    I. Menn

  4. International Research Institute of Stavanger, 4070, Randaberg, Norway

    A. K. Sweetman

  5. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, 27570, Bremerhaven, Germany

    D. Piepenburg

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  1. M. Sswat
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Correspondence to M. Sswat.

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Online Resource 1: Presence–absence data of all benthic taxa identified in seabed images and Agassiz trawl catches taken north of Svalbard in 2010/2011 (PDF 188 kb)

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Sswat, M., Gulliksen, B., Menn, I. et al. Distribution and composition of the epibenthic megafauna north of Svalbard (Arctic). Polar Biol 38, 861–877 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-015-1645-8

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