(Table 1) Annual gross and new primary production rates obtained for areas centered on the AWI-HAUSGARTEN mooring (2000-2005)

• Main Authors: Forest, Alexandre, Wassmann, Paul, Slagstad, Dag, Bauerfeind, Eduard, Nöthig, Eva-Maria, Klages, Michael
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2010
• Subjects: ARK-XVI/2; AWI; FEVI1; International Polar Year (2007-2008); IPY; modelled; Mooring (long time); MOORY; North Greenland Sea; Polarstern; Primary production of carbon; standard deviation; Primary production of carbon per area; yearly; PS57; PS57/273-1; HGIV; Radius; Sampling date; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Atlantic Arctic; Atlantic-Arctic; Fram Strait; Global warming; Greenland; Greenland Sea; International Polar Year; North Greenland; Polar Biology; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.809524; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.809524

The lack of extended dataset has so far prevented an inclusive understanding of the long-term relationships between primary production (PP) and vertical export in the Arctic Ocean. It is urgent to investigate these connections as Arctic ecosystems are on the verge of climate-related shifts, which could be caused by the combined effects of increase in Pacific and Atlantic inflow, climate warming, and sea ice decline. For a period of 6 years we investigated the degree of coupling between PP and export by making use of modelled PP rates and vertical particle fluxes collected with sediment traps moored at ~300 m depth in the eastern Fram Strait. Our analyses indicate that total and new simulated PP averaged for different areas centered on the mooring location (5-200 km radius) explain at best 20-44% of the observed biogenic particle fluxes at 300 m, when applying extended time-lags (55-90 days) between PP and vertical fluxes. Based on this phasing, we define a conceptual framework that presents the temporal dimension as a prime determinant of the maximum strength of the PP-export coupling at a given depth. Our results support that planktonic food webs in the Fram Strait process heavily biogenic material in the epipelagic zone, but we further suggest that Atlantic-Arctic water interactions induce a particular ecological setting responsible for the extended turn-over. In conclusion, we hypothesize that global warming could promote a transition toward a more retentive ecosystem in the Fram Strait region despite the likely increase of pelagic PP in the Arctic Ocean.