Biodiversity in the northern Barents Sea and adjacent Nansen Basin – towards an updated inventory

Abstract

Biodiversity patterns shape and drive ecosystem processes and functions in the global ocean. Given the changing climate and recent agreements to protect ocean regions, current estimates of biodiversity must be assembled. Here, we present new estimates and spatial patters of taxon richness from microbes to mammals from a shelf-to-basin transect in the northern Barents Sea and southern Nansen Basin from seasonal sampling in 2018-2022 by the Nansen Legacy project. We find that estimates of taxon richness are higher on the shelf than in the basin for pelagic protists, zooplankton, and benthic macrobenthos, nematodes, and prokaryotes, but not for sympagic protists. Taxon richness varied seasonally for pelagic prokaryotes, protists, and zooplankton, but little for sympagic meiofauna, benthic prokaryotes and macrobenthos. Unsurprisingly, taxon richness was generally highest for single-celled taxa. Taxon-rich groups included: sympagic diatoms; pelagic prokaryotes (e.g., Alphaproteobacteria), diatoms, dinoflagellates, copepods; and benthic prokaryotes (with abundant taxa, e.g., Candidatus nitrosopumilus and Woesia), nematodes, and polychaetes. Unexpectedly absent - though known from earlier studies - were, for example, nematodes in sea ice. Ironically, at top (and perhaps other) trophic levels species richness is likely to be enhanced regionally for some time, while losses of Arctic (endemic) species will impact global biodiversity, and potentially Arctic ecosystem functioning