Marine Mammal sighting data from cruises in the Pacific Arctic, 2009-2018, from Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) Regions

• Main Author: Kathleen Stafford
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Arctic Data Center 2018
• Subjects: Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO); Marine mammal; Visual observations; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Bering Sea; Chukchi Sea; Pacific; Lawrence Island; Beaufort Shelf; Barrow Canyon; Amundsen Gulf; Beaufort Sea; Chukchi; Pacific Arctic; Phytoplankton; Sea ice; St Lawrence Island
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.18739/A29K45S8K

The Pacific Arctic region (PAR) extends from the northern Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean Basin, and it is experiencing major reductions in seasonal sea ice and increases in sea surface temperatures. Within the PAR, the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas are among the most productive marine ecosystems in the Arctic and are important carbon sinks and seasonal sources of organic materials. These recent shifts in seasonal sea ice cover are having profound consequences for seasonal phytoplankton production as well as to intimately linked higher trophic levels, including food harvested locally for subsistence. Key uncertainties remain as to how the marine ecosystem will respond to seasonal shifts in the timing of spring sea ice retreat and/or delays in fall sea ice formation. Productivity may change as sea ice declines and penetration of sunlight into open water increases, but the trajectory of changes to food web structure are unclear. Many organisms, from plankton to top predators are changing their distribution, migration and foraging patterns. A number of marine sites in the Pacific Arctic have high biomass, both in the water column and on the seafloor and are focused foraging points for apex predators. Several of these sites have been identified and re-occupied seasonally and interannually during multiple international cruises as part of the Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) network. The DBO observational data documenting the importance of these ecosystem “hotspots” provide a growing marine time-series from the northern Bering Sea to Barrow Canyon at the boundary of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and across the Beaufort Sea to Amundsen Gulf. In US waters, these sites are DBO1 (south of St. Lawrence Island, DBO2 (Chirikov Basin north of SLI), DBO3 (southern Chukchi Sea), DBO4 (central Chukchi Sea), DBO5 (upper Barrow Canyon) , DBO6 (Beaufort Sea shelf break at ~152W). As part of DBO efforts, marine mammal visual detections have been obtained from any research voyage with an on-board observer and sightings within DBO regions 1-6 have been highlighted.