Demersal Fish Assemblages and Spatial Diversity Patterns in the Arctic-Atlantic Transition Zone in the Barents Sea

Direct and indirect effects of global warming are expected to be pronounced and fast in the Arctic, impacting terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The Barents Sea is a high latitude shelf Sea and a boundary area between arctic and boreal faunas. These faunas are likely to respond differently to changes in climate. In addition, the Barents Sea is highly impacted by fisheries and other human activities. This strong human presence places great demands on scientific investigation and advisory capacity. In order to identify basic community structures against which future climate related or other human induced changes could be evaluated, we analyzed species composition and diversity of demersal fish in the Barents Sea. We found six main assemblages that were separated along depth and temperature gradients. There are indications that climate driven changes have already taken place, since boreal species were found in large parts of the Barents Sea shelf, including also the northern Arctic area. When modelling diversity as a function of depth and temperature, we found that two of the assemblages in the eastern Barents Sea showed lower diversity than expected from their depth and temperature. This is probably caused by low habitat complexity and the distance to the pool of boreal species in the western Barents Sea. In contrast coastal assemblages in south western Barents Sea and along Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Eastern Barents Sea can be described as diversity “hotspots”; the South-western area had high density of species, abundance and biomass, and here some species have their northern distribution limit, whereas the Novaya Zemlya area has unique fauna of Arctic, coastal demersal fish. (see Information S1 for abstract in Russian)

Towards eco-friendly crop protection: natural deep eutectic solvents and defensive secondary metabolites

Plant science

Properties of plasma sprayed ScSZ electrolyte coating

The cost-effective preparation of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrolyte layer is an important issue for its practical application to SOFCs. Among many processes used for preparing electrolyte in SOFCs, atmospheric plasma spraying is of advantage because of rapid deposition with fl exibility possibly leading to cost-effective manufacturing of SOFCs. In the present study, plasma-sprayable scandia-stabilized zirconia (ScSz) powder is prepared by co-precipitation route without any agglomeration step and the powders are characterized for phase, morphology, fl owability and particle size using powder X-ray diffractometry, Raman spectroscopy, fi eld emission scanning electron microscopy, Hall fl ow meter, and particle size analyzer. The powder exhibited cubic phase, good flow ability, and blocky angular shape. Freeform of plasma sprayed ScSZ is characterized for conductivity. The overall conductivity of ScSZ plasma sprayed coating at 773 K (~7.19 × 10−4 S/cm) is much higher than the reported value at the same temperature for plasma sprayed ScSZ. This may be due to the better melting of the particles in the present study. The as plasma sprayed coating is also characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy to determine the adhesion of the coating to the substrate