ARCTIC An Arctic Kelp Community in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea

• Main Authors: Kenneth H. Dunton, Erk Reimnitz, Susan Schonberg
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Key words; kelp; Laminaria solidungula; Flaxman boulders; Beaufort Sea; Boulder Patch; productivity; recolonization; geophysical surveys; Arctic; Stefansson; Stefansson Sound; Prudhoe Bay; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.547.1576; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/arctic35-4-465.pdf

ABSTRACT. The discovery of the “Boulder Patch”, an area of cobbles and boulders with attached kelp and invertebrate life, is reported from Stefansson Sound, near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Geophysical surveys using side-scan sonar and low-frequency recording fathometers reveal that cobbles and boulders occur in patches of various sizes and densities. Despite a seasonal influx of sediments, the Boulder Patch is a nondepositional environment. Physical disruption of cobbles and boulders by deep draft ice is minimal due to offshore islands and shoals which restrict the passage of large ice floes into Stefansson Sound. The apparent absence of similar concentrations of rocks with attached biota along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast is explained by the scarcity of rocks in areas protected from ice abrasion and with no net sediment deposition. In Stefansson Sound, the rocks provide a substratum for a diverse assortment of invertebrates and several species of algae. Recolonization by the biota was minimal on twelve boulders denuded and then left undisturbed for a three-year period. Sedimentation and grazing activity appear to be the major factors inhibiting recolonization. Linear growth in the kelp, Laminaria solidungula, is greatest in winter and early spring when nutrients are available for new tissue growth. The plant draws on stored food reserves to complete over 90 % of its annual linear growth during the nine months of darkness under a turbid ice canopy. These reserves are accumulated by photosynthetic activity during the preceding summer. The total carbon contribution made by kelp in Stefansson Sound under these conditions is about 146 x lo6 gyr ” or 7 g.m-2.yr”. A small percentage of this carbon is consumed directly by herbivores, but its importance to other organisms is not known and is under investigation.