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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Interdisciplinary Climate Studies
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1432761
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Change Impacts on Arctic Ecosystems and Associated Climate Feedbacks View all articles

Ice algae contributions to the benthos during a time of sea ice change: a review of supply, coupling, and fate

Provisionally accepted
Andrea Niemi Andrea Niemi 1*Bodil A. Bluhm Bodil A. Bluhm 2Thomas Juul-Pedersen Thomas Juul-Pedersen 3Doreen Kohlbach Doreen Kohlbach 2Marit Reigstad Marit Reigstad 2Dorte H. Søgaard Dorte H. Søgaard 3,4Rémi Amiraux Rémi Amiraux 5
  • 1 Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Ottawa, Canada
  • 2 UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Troms, Norway
  • 3 Greenland Climate Research Centre, Nuuk, Greenland
  • 4 Aarhus University, Aarhus, Central Denmark Region, Denmark
  • 5 Laval University, Quebec, Quebec, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The polymer-facilitated flux of ice algae on Arctic shelves can initiate benthic activity and growth after the nutritionally constrained winter period. Lipid-rich ice algae are readily consumed by benthos and those entering the sediment can benefit deposit feeders. Ice algae assimilated by benthic organisms cascade up multiple trophic levels within the benthic sub-web, re-entering the pelagic sub web through habitat coupling species. Pelagic predators can have significant ice-algal carbon signals obtained from the benthic compartment. Sympagic-pelagic-benthic coupling on Arctic shelves is expected to weaken with ongoing sea-ice change. This review discusses the phenology, quantity, and quality of ice-algal contributions to coupling, linked to thinning snow and ice cover including multiyear ice replacement. Predicting future coupling between marine sub-webs requires focused research that considers trophic markers of multiple carbon sources.

    Keywords: sea ice, Ice algae, Arctic change, Benthos, sympagic-pelagic-benthic coupling

    Received: 14 May 2024; Accepted: 05 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Niemi, Bluhm, Juul-Pedersen, Kohlbach, Reigstad, Søgaard and Amiraux. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Andrea Niemi, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Ottawa, Canada

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