NI: Benthos of the Arctic as a Storage reservoir for sea-Ice Carbon

Sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean has seen a steady decline since satellite-borne measurements began in the late 1970s. Sea ice supports the growth of ice algae, a fundamental component of the Arctic carbon cycle, providing food to Arctic animals. When sea ice melts every spring, ice algae are released to the water where they are either consumed by pelagic animals, or sink to the seafloor. Gaining an accurate understanding of these pathways for this important energy rich carbon resource represents a major scientific challenge that holds the key to understanding the future of Arctic ecosystems. However, until recently, this has not been possible because of the challenges associated with distinguishing sea ice carbon from other similar sources of carbon, such as phytoplankton.
Having recently overcome these challenges in the last 3 years, it is now possible to unambiguously trace the pathway of sea ice-derived carbon. Recent findings have therefore shown that sea ice-derived carbon can be found in Arctic animals year-round. This is believed to be because excess (not consumed during sinking) sea ice-derived carbon that sinks can also become 'stored' within sediments where it can remain available as a food source to animals year-round. Consequently, if this idea is correct, our present assumption of the role sea ice carbon plays in the ecosystem is severely underestimating its importance.

This project will bring together the expertise of British, Canadian and American scientists in a new collaborative partnership to assess whether the seafloor (e.g. rock, sand, mud, silt) acts as a 'store' of Arctic sea ice-derived primary production that can be considered available for marine animals to consume. Completion of the project aims relies upon collaboration between Brown's established (Mundy) and new (Iken) links within the assembled team.

We will carry out studies on the marine region around Southampton Island, northwest Hudson Bay (Nunavut) which encompasses one of Canada's largest summer and winter aggregations of Arctic marine mammals. By sharing resources with a funded Canadian research project we will access a unique field site to collect primary preliminary data to improve understanding of ecosystem structure and function. Our findings will be relevant to the whole Arctic region and so will stimulate new research interests on an international scale.

BASIC aims to make a major impact on the understanding, management and future prediction capabilities of resource supply and partitioning within Arctic ecosystems to better understand likely changes in future biodiversity. In December 2017 the world's major fishing nations (Canada, Russia, China, the US, the EU, Japan, Iceland, Denmark and South Korea) agreed a moratorium on commercial fishing in the Arctic Ocean. The deal, set to last for 16 years, is to facilitate research into the existing marine ecosystem. This landmark decision, to pre-emptively shield an environment from anthropogenic pressures, demonstrates the scale of international concern and illustrates the timeliness of BASIC activities as global society recognises the importance of this research. We will use UK (SAMS/NERC), USA and Canadian (DFO) communications facilities to produce briefing notes for interested government bodies (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, DEFRA, House of Lords Select Committee on the Arctic), the IASC (International Arctic Scientific Committee) and UK All Party Parliamentary Groups for Polar Regions and Fisheries. Our findings will also be disseminated to help inform NGO conservation bodies including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Arctic Biodiversity Conservation Strategy of the Conservation of Flora and Fauna (CAFF) on areas/animals at specific risk. Hence, we aim to reach out to a broad spectrum of scientists, government and general public.

We will apply our expertise in habitat mapping, resource partitioning and carbon distribution to develop a model within the partner project (SIMEP) to inform stakeholders on the sustainability of expanding fishing/hunting activities in the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean. Stakeholders that will benefit from project output will be: 1: Canadian Government who use retrospective stock assessment data to issue fishing and hunting quotas. Project data will provide the knowledge required to offer a more informed outlook on the future sustainability of Hudson Bay ecosystems as a whole and will facilitate and support the current 'precautionary approach' to planning. 2: Consequently, low income Arctic communities will benefit from better management of their natural resources. This will ensure the current value of commercial hunting is (at least) maintained through suitable management. This requires a more holistic knowledge of energy-ecosystem interactions which is currently lacking. 3: Eco-tourism will benefit from the knowledge gained since project data are required to inform the responsible management of Arctic ecosystems by preventing the overexploitation of keystone species that support benthic-energy linkages to marine mammals, such as walrus.