Food web structure of the epibenthic community at the sea ice edge in Baffin Bay, Canada
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Ecology, Marine Biology, Climate Change Biology, Biological Oceanography
- Keywords
- Fatty acids, food web, Canadian Arctic, stable isotopes, Baffin Bay, Epibenthic community
- Copyright
- © 2018 Yunda-Guarin et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Food web structure of the epibenthic community at the sea ice edge in Baffin Bay, Canada. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26673v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26673v1
Abstract
In polar areas, the pelagic-benthic coupling plays a fundamental role in ensuring organic matter flow across depths and trophic levels. Climate change impacts the Arctic’s physical environment and ecosystem functioning, affecting the sequestration of carbon, the structure and efficiency of the benthic food web and its resilience.In the Arctic Ocean, highest atmospheric warming tendencies (by ~0.5°C) occur in the east of Baffin Bay making this area an ideal site to study the effects of climate change on benthic communities. We sampled epibenthic organisms at 13 stations bordering the sea ice between June and July 2016. The epibenthic taxonomic composition was identified and grouped by feeding guilds. Isotopic signatures (δ13C - δ15N), trophic levels and trophic separation and redundancy were measured and quantified at each station. In the light of the results obtained, the stability of the benthic community in the Baffin Bay at the sea ice edge is discussed.
Author Comment
“This is an abstract which has been accepted for the WCMB” (for abstracts).