Effects of sea ice on Arctic biota

Recent and accelerating loss of Arctic sea ice area, extent and volume poses urgent questions regarding its effects on Arctic biota (both in terrestrial and maritime ecosystems), and likely presents a looming conservation crisis for ice-adapted biodiversity. The special feature presented herein—entitled Effects of Sea Ice on Arctic Biota—responds to this urgency, assembling the most up-to-date lines of research on this topic. We present a selection of 16 peer-reviewed papers covering a comprehensive range of expertise, including studies on phenology, population dynamics, resource use, primary productivity, range dynamics, long-term ecology and societal responses to changes in Arctic sea ice.

In the first paper of the collection, Macias-Fauria & Post [1] present a framework that aims to incorporate the different ways in which sea ice can influence Arctic biota. Direct effects are defined as those acting on life-history events of many organisms and involve the role of sea ice as a living medium, a platform—e.g. for hunting, mating, resting, rearing offspring, protection from predation, a migration/transport-affecting substrate, or a resource filter—e.g. light. Indirect effects refer to those that modify other components of the physical system, which can in turn affect living systems, or act upon other organisms through trophic networks. Among these, sea ice-modified weather/climate and geomorphological dynamics can affect a range of ecosystems, including terrestrial ones. These effects most often operate simultaneously and in synergy, and include human agency, which spans subsistence to large industrial activities.

The current issue highlights the following main points:

• (1) The effects of sea ice on Arctic biota encompass a spectrum of mechanisms operating at many organizational levels and across multiple scales (ranging from microscopic within-sea ice matrix processes to hemispheric climate modification, and from immediate effects to millennial-scale rates of species migration across the Arctic Ocean). Sea ice exerts effects on virtually all components of the ecosystems in the Arctic, with both bottom-up and top-down controls, very commonly acting in synergy (i.e. displaying nonlinearities).

• (2) Point (1) stresses the need for and potential of an interdisciplinary approach to this research area, including urgently embracing the value and importance of traditional ecological knowledge.

• (3) The study of the effects of sea ice on Arctic biota is an increasingly active research field, constituting a natural response to the urgency of the processes involved.

• (4) The combination of a rapid pace of environmental change—sea ice loss—and the need to act amidst large uncertainty qualifies the study and management of the ecological effects of sea ice as a crisis discipline.

• (5) Solving the core problem of the present crisis—the rapid disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic—lies well beyond local action and requires a global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

• (6) While the global response (point 5) is achieved, understanding the processes that interact with the ways in which sea ice decline influences Arctic biota is the only way to provide humankind with the knowledge to manage the present and anticipate future scenarios.

Data accessibility

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Competing interests

We declare we have no competing interests.

Funding

This study was supported by Natural Environment Research Council (grant no. NE/L011859/1).