Pan-arctic depth distribution of diapausing Calanus copepods

Author Posting. © University of Chicago, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of University of Chicago for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Biological Bulletin 237(2), (2019): 76-89, doi: 10.1086/704694.Diapause at depth is considered an integral part of the life cycle of Calanus copepods, but few studies have focused on the Arctic species Calanus glacialis and Calanus hyperboreus. By analyzing a large set of pan-arctic observational data compiled from multiple sources, we show that Arctic Calanus has a broad depth distribution in winter, indicating that diapause at depth is a facultative strategy. Both species’ vertical distributions tend to deepen in winter and to be deeper and broader with increasing bottom depth, while individuals are aggregated closer to the sea floor in shallow areas. These results indicate that Arctic Calanus species pursue a relatively deep diapause habitat but are topographically blocked on the shelves. Interspecific differences in depth distribution during diapause suggest the importance of predation. The larger C. hyperboreus has a deeper diapause depth than C. glacialis, potentially to alleviate predation pressure or as a result of predation loss near the surface. Moreover, the mean depth of C. hyperboreus in winter is negatively associated with latitude, indicating a shoaling of the diapause population in the central Arctic Ocean where predation pressure is lower. Our results suggest a complex diapause behavior by Arctic Calanus, with implications for our view of the species’ roles in Arctic ecosystems.KØK was supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution John H. Steele Postdoctoral Scholar award and the VISTA Scholarship (http://www.vista.no). We are grateful to Sigrún Jonasdóttir, Susan Mills, Imme Rutzen, Russ Hopcroft, Peter Munk, and Rasmus Swalethorp for kindly sharing observational data. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for insightful and constructive suggestions that helped us improve the manuscript.2020-09-1

Early ice retreat and ocean warming may induce copepod biogeographic boundary shifts in the Arctic Ocean

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 121 (2016): 6137-6158, doi:10.1002/2016JC011784.Early ice retreat and ocean warming are changing various facets of the Arctic marine ecosystem, including the biogeographic distribution of marine organisms. Here an endemic copepod species, Calanus glacialis, was used as a model organism, to understand how and why Arctic marine environmental changes may induce biogeographic boundary shifts. A copepod individual-based model was coupled to an ice-ocean-ecosystem model to simulate temperature- and food-dependent copepod life history development. Numerical experiments were conducted for two contrasting years: a relatively cold and normal sea ice year (2001) and a well-known warm year with early ice retreat (2007). Model results agreed with commonly known biogeographic distributions of C. glacialis, which is a shelf/slope species and cannot colonize the vast majority of the central Arctic basins. Individuals along the northern boundaries of this species' distribution were most susceptible to reproduction timing and early food availability (released sea ice algae). In the Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, and Laptev Seas where severe ocean warming and loss of sea ice occurred in summer 2007, relatively early ice retreat, elevated ocean temperature (about 1–2°C higher than 2001), increased phytoplankton food, and prolonged growth season created favorable conditions for C. glacialis development and caused a remarkable poleward expansion of its distribution. From a pan-Arctic perspective, despite the great heterogeneity in the temperature and food regimes, common biogeographic zones were identified from model simulations, thus allowing a better characterization of habitats and prediction of potential future biogeographic boundary shifts.National Science Foundation Polar Programs Grant Number: (PLR-1417677, PLR-1417339, and PLR-1416920)2017-02-2

Biogeographic responses of the copepod Calanus glacialis to a changing Arctic marine environment

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Change Biology 24 (2018): e159-e170, doi:10.1111/gcb.13890.Dramatic changes have occurred in the Arctic Ocean over the past few decades, especially in terms of sea ice loss and ocean warming. Those environmental changes may modify the planktonic ecosystem with changes from lower to upper trophic levels. This study aimed to understand how the biogeographic distribution of a crucial endemic copepod species, Calanus glacialis, may respond to both abiotic (ocean temperature) and biotic (phytoplankton prey) drivers. A copepod individual-based model coupled to an ice-ocean-biogeochemical model was utilized to simulate temperature- and food-dependent life cycle development of C. glacialis annually from 1980 to 2014. Over the 35-year study period, the northern boundaries of modeled diapausing C. glacialis expanded poleward and the annual success rates of C. glacialis individuals attaining diapause in a circumpolar transition zone increased substantially. Those patterns could be explained by a lengthening growth season (during which time food is ample) and shortening critical development time (the period from the first feeding stage N3 to the diapausing stage C4). The biogeographic changes were further linked to large scale oceanic processes, particularly diminishing sea ice cover, upper ocean warming, and increasing and prolonging food availability, which could have potential consequences to the entire Arctic shelf/slope marine ecosystems.This study was funded by National Science Foundation Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Program (PLR-1417677, PLR-1417339, and PLR-1416920)

The oscillating two-cluster chimera state in non-locally coupled phase oscillators

We investigate an array of identical phase oscillators non-locally coupled without time delay, and find that chimera state with two coherent clusters exists which is only reported in delay-coupled systems previously. Moreover, we find that the chimera state is not stationary for any finite number of oscillators. The existence of the two-cluster chimera state and its time-dependent behaviors for finite number of oscillators are confirmed by the theoretical analysis based on the self-consistency treatment and the Ott-Antonsen ansatz

Initial spread of 137Cs from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant over the Japan continental shelf : a study using a high-resolution, global-coastal nested ocean model

© The Author(s), 2013. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 10 (2013): 5439-5449, doi:10.5194/bg-10-5439-2013.The 11 March 2011 tsunami triggered by the M9 and M7.9 earthquakes off the Tōhoku coast destroyed facilities at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) leading to a significant long-term flow of the radionuclide 137Cs into coastal waters. A high-resolution, global-coastal nested ocean model was first constructed to simulate the 11 March tsunami and coastal inundation. Based on the model's success in reproducing the observed tsunami and coastal inundation, model experiments were then conducted with differing grid resolution to assess the initial spread of 137Cs over the eastern shelf of Japan. The 137Cs was tracked as a conservative tracer (without radioactive decay) in the three-dimensional model flow field over the period of 26 March–31 August 2011. The results clearly show that for the same 137Cs discharge, the model-predicted spreading of 137Cs was sensitive not only to model resolution but also the FNPP seawall structure. A coarse-resolution (∼2 km) model simulation led to an overestimation of lateral diffusion and thus faster dispersion of 137Cs from the coast to the deep ocean, while advective processes played a more significant role when the model resolution at and around the FNPP was refined to ∼5 m. By resolving the pathways from the leaking source to the southern and northern discharge canals, the high-resolution model better predicted the 137Cs spreading in the inner shelf where in situ measurements were made at 30 km off the coast. The overestimation of 137Cs concentration near the coast is thought to be due to the omission of sedimentation and biogeochemical processes as well as uncertainties in the amount of 137Cs leaking from the source in the model. As a result, a biogeochemical module should be included in the model for more realistic simulations of the fate and spreading of 137Cs in the ocean.This project was supported by the US National Science Foundation RAPID grants No. 1141697 and No. 1141785 and the Japan Science and Technology Agency J-RAPID program. The development of Global-FVCOM was supported by NSF grants ARC0712903, ARC0732084, and ARC0804029. Z. Lai’s contribution was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China project 41206005, China MOST project 2012CB956004, and Sun Yat-Sen University 985 grant 42000-3281301. C. Chen serves as chief scientist for the International Center for Marine Studies, Shanghai Ocean University, and his contribution was supported by the Program of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (09320503700)

Ecosystem model intercomparison of under-ice and total primary production in the Arctic Ocean

Previous observational studies have found increasing primary production (PP) in response to declining sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean. In this study, under-ice PP was assessed based on three coupled ice-ocean-ecosystem models participating in the Forum for Arctic Modeling and Observational Synthesis (FAMOS) project. All models showed good agreement with under-ice measurements of surface chlorophyll-a concentration and vertically integrated PP rates during the main under-ice production period, from mid-May to September. Further, modeled 30-year (1980–2009) mean values and spatial patterns of sea ice concentration compared well with remote sensing data. Under-ice PP was higher in the Arctic shelf seas than in the Arctic Basin, but ratios of under-ice PP over total PP were spatially correlated with annual mean sea ice concentration, with higher ratios in higher ice concentration regions. Decreases in sea ice from 1980 to 2009 were correlated significantly with increases in total PP and decreases in the under-ice PP/total PP ratio for most of the Arctic, but nonsignificantly related to under-ice PP, especially in marginal ice zones. Total PP within the Arctic Circle increased at an annual rate of between 3.2 and 8.0 Tg C/yr from 1980 to 2009. This increase in total PP was due mainly to a PP increase in open water, including increases in both open water area and PP rate per unit area, and therefore much stronger than the changes in under-ice PP. All models suggested that, on a pan-Arctic scale, the fraction of under-ice PP declined with declining sea ice cover over the last three decades

Plasticity in dormancy behaviour of Calanoides acutus in Antarctic coastal waters

Copepods that enter dormancy, such as Calanoides acutus, are key primary consumers in Southern Ocean food webs where they convert a portion of the seasonal phytoplankton biomass into a longer-term energetic and physiological resource as wax ester (WE) reserves. We studied the seasonal abundance and lipid profiles of pre-adult and adult C. acutus in relation to phytoplankton dynamics on the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Initiation of dormancy occurred when WE unsaturation was relatively high, and chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentrations, predominantly attributable to diatoms, were reducing. Declines in WE unsaturation during the winter may act as a dormancy timing mechanism with increased Chl a concentrations likely to promote sedimentation that results in a teleconnection between the surface and deep water inducing ascent. A late summer diatom bloom was linked to early dormancy termination of females and a second spawning event. The frequency and duration of high biomass phytoplankton blooms may have consequences for the lifespan of the iteroparous C. acutus females (either 1 or 2 years) if limited by a total of two main spawning events. Late summer recruits, generated by a second spawning event, likely benefitted from lower predation and high phytoplankton food availability. The flexibility of copepods to modulate their life-cycle strategy in response to bottom-up and top-down conditions enables individuals to optimize their probability of reproductive success in the very variable environment prevalent in the Southern Ocean

Variations in rates of biological production in the Beaufort Gyre as the arctic changes: Rates from 2011 to 2016

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(6), (2019): 3628-3644, doi:10.1029/2018JC014805.The Arctic Ocean is experiencing profound environmental changes as the climate warms. Understanding how these changes will affect Arctic biological productivity is key for predicting future Arctic ecosystems and the global CO2 balance. Here we use in situ gas measurements to quantify rates of gross oxygen production (GOP, total photosynthesis) and net community production (NCP, net CO2 drawdown by the biological pump) in the mixed layer in summer or fall from 2011 to 2016 in the Beaufort Gyre. NCP and GOP show spatial and temporal variations with higher values linked with lower concentrations of sea ice and increased upper ocean stratification. Mean rates of GOP range from 8 ± 1 to 54 ± 9 mmol O2·m−2·d−1 with the highest mean rates occurring in summer of 2012. Mean rates of NCP ranged from 1.3 ± 0.2 to 2.9 ± 0.5 mmol O2·m−2·d−1. The mean ratio of NCP/GOP, a measure of how efficiently the ecosystem is recycling its nutrients, ranged from 0.04 to 0.17, similar to ratios observed at lower latitudes. Additionally, a large increase in total photosynthesis that occurred in 2012, a year of historically low sea ice coverage, persisted for many years. Taken together, these data provide one of the most complete characterizations of interannual variations of biological productivity in this climatically important region, can serve as a baseline for future changes in rates of production, and give an intriguing glimpse of how this region of the Arctic may respond to future lack of sea ice.We sincerely thank the scientific teams of Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Joint Ocean Ice Studies expedition and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Beaufort Gyre Observing System. The hydrographic, nutrient, and chlorophyll data were collected and made available by the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Program based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre) in collaboration with researchers from Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Institute of Ocean Sciences. We thank the captains and crews of the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Louis S. St‐Laurent and Mike Dempsey for sample collection. This paper was improved by the suggestions of Michael DeGrandpre and one anonymous reviewer. We are grateful to Qing Wang at Wellesley College for her assistance with statistics. We thank our funding sources: the National Science Foundation (NSF 1547011, NSF 1302884, NSF 1719280, NSF 1643735) and the support of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Data presented and discussed in this paper can be found in the Arctic Data Center (http://10.18739/A2W389).2019-10-3

Pan-Antarctic analysis aggregating spatial estimates of Adélie penguin abundance reveals robust dynamics despite stochastic noise

© The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 8 (2017): 832, doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00890-0.Colonially-breeding seabirds have long served as indicator species for the health of the oceans on which they depend. Abundance and breeding data are repeatedly collected at fixed study sites in the hopes that changes in abundance and productivity may be useful for adaptive management of marine resources, but their suitability for this purpose is often unknown. To address this, we fit a Bayesian population dynamics model that includes process and observation error to all known Adélie penguin abundance data (1982–2015) in the Antarctic, covering >95% of their population globally. We find that process error exceeds observation error in this system, and that continent-wide “year effects” strongly influence population growth rates. Our findings have important implications for the use of Adélie penguins in Southern Ocean feedback management, and suggest that aggregating abundance across space provides the fastest reliable signal of true population change for species whose dynamics are driven by stochastic processes.H.J.L., C.C.-C., G.H., C.Y., and K.T.S. gratefully acknowledge funding provided by US National Aeronautics and Space Administration Award No. NNX14AC32G and U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Award No. NSF/OPP-1255058. S.J., L.L., M.M.H., Y.L., and R.J. gratefully acknowledge funding provided by US National Aeronautics and Space Administration Award No. NNX14AH74G. H.J.L., C.Y., S.J., Y.L., and R.J. gratefully acknowledge funding provided by U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Award No. NSF/PLR-1341548. S.J. gratefully acknowledges support from the Dalio Explore Fund

Environmental drivers of a decline in a coastal zooplankton community

Major changes in North Atlantic zooplankton communities in recent decades have been linked to climate change but the roles of environmental drivers are often complex. High temporal resolution data is required to disentangle the natural seasonal drivers from additional sources of variability in highly heterogeneous marine systems. Here, physical and plankton abundance data spanning 2003–2017 from a weekly long-term monitoring site on the west coast of Scotland were used to investigate the cause of an increasing decline to approximately -80± 5% in annual average total zooplankton abundance from 2011 to 2017. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs), with an autoregressive correlation structure, were used to examine seasonal and inter-annual trends in zooplankton abundance and their relationship with environmental variables. Substantial declines were detected across all dominant taxa, with ∼ 30–70% of the declines in abundance explained by a concurrent negative trend in salinity, alongside the seasonal cycle, with the additional significance of food availability found for some taxa. Temperature was found to drive seasonal variation but not the long-term trends in the zooplankton community. The reduction in salinity had the largest effect on several important taxa. Salinity changes could partly be explained by locally higher freshwater run-off driven by precipitation as well as potential links to changes in offshore water masses. The results highlight that changes in salinity, caused by either freshwater input (expected from climate predictions) or fresher offshore water masses, may adversely impact coastal zooplankton communities and the predators that depend on them