Environmental niche overlap in sibling planktonic species calanus finmarchicus and c. glacialis in Arctic fjords ...

• Main Author: Weydmann-Zwolicka, Agata
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Niche overlap; Calanus glacialis; Calanus finmarchicus; Zooplankton; Svalbard; Marine biology; FOS Biological sciences; Arctic; Rijpfjorden; Climate change; Kongsfjord*; Kongsfjorden; Rijpfjord*; Sea ice; Copepods
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgqw6; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgqw6

Knowledge of the environmental preferences of the key planktonic species, such as Calanus copepods in the Arctic, is crucial to understand ecosystem function and its future under climate change. Here we assessed the environmental conditions influencing the development stages of Atlantic C. finmarchicus and Arctic C. glacialis, and quantified the extent to which their niches overlap by incorporating multiple environmental data. We based our analysis on a three-year seasonal collection of zooplankton by sediment traps, located on moorings in two contrasting Svalbard fjords: the Arctic Rijpfjorden, and the Atlantic-influenced Kongsfjorden. Despite large differences in water temperature between the fjords, local realized niches of the sibling Calanus species overlapped almost perfectly. The exception was the earliest copepodites of C. glacialis in Rijpfjorden, which probably utilized the local ice algal bloom in spring. However, during periods with no sea ice, like in Kongsfjorden, the siblings of both Calanus ...