Abstract
The project addresses how Arctic climate variability and change influence biomass production and trophic transfer in Barents Sea ecosystem. The population of copepods in the Norwegian Sea, particularly the Calanus finmarchicus, plays a key role in the transformation of biomass from lower to higher trophic levels in the Arctic. The advection of copepod-rich water from the Norwegian Sea into the Barents Sea is hypothesized to be of great importance to the Barents Sea biomass production. The first emphasis will be on analyses of a large variety of time series from hydrography, currents, zooplankton, to 0-group fish, in addition to paleo data on water mass properties. The second emphasis will be on development of a model system that integrates and quantifies the effects of climate variability on biomass production and trophic transfer from copepods to fish recruitment, including the modifying effect from sea bird predation. The model results will be evaluated against time series on abundance and distribution of 0-group fish. The project is an interdisciplinary approach with 9 partner institutions.
Norway