Antarctic Seabed Assemblages in an Ice-Shelf-Adjacent Polynya, Western Weddell Sea. ...
Ice shelves cover ~1.6 million km2 of the Antarctic continental shelf and are sensitive indicators of climate change. With ice-shelf retreat, aphotic marine environments transform into new open-water spaces of photo-induced primary production and associated organic matter export to the benthos. Pred...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
MDPI AG
2022
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.93147 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/345725 |
Summary: | Ice shelves cover ~1.6 million km2 of the Antarctic continental shelf and are sensitive indicators of climate change. With ice-shelf retreat, aphotic marine environments transform into new open-water spaces of photo-induced primary production and associated organic matter export to the benthos. Predicting how Antarctic seafloor assemblages may develop following ice-shelf loss requires knowledge of assemblages bordering the ice-shelf margins, which are relatively undocumented. This study investigated seafloor assemblages, by taxa and functional groups, in a coastal polynya adjacent to the Larsen C Ice Shelf front, western Weddell Sea. The study area is rarely accessed, at the frontline of climate change, and located within a CCAMLR-proposed international marine protected area. Four sites, ~1 to 16 km from the ice-shelf front, were explored for megabenthic assemblages, and potential environmental drivers of assemblage structures were assessed. Faunal density increased with distance from the ice shelf, with ... |
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