Environmental gradients shaping communities and trophic structure are likely to influence ecosystem functioning with implications for stability. For ecosystems characterized by rapid changes, such as those induced by climate change in the Arctic Ocean, it is therefore imperative that we form a thorough understanding of how food webs currently are structured. In this work, we explore the biodiversity of benthic communities in under-studied Northeast Greenland waters. More specifically, we present both taxonomic and trait-based diversity of epifaunal invertebrates, as well as estimates of food web structure for the benthic communities across a high-Arctic seascape, encompassing fjord, shelf, shelf-break, and upper-slope habitats. Our approach allows us to better understand community assembly by examining how species relatedness, traits, and the environment contribute to structuring the communities. Despite a habitat-specific community structure, reflected in the trait-based estimates of diversity, the epibenthic invertebrate food web characterized using stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen did not show any consistent spatial trend. Instead, there was high overlap among consumer assemblages, which would suggest that, even with changes in consumer composition and assumed availability of different food sources, food web structure (as depicted in isotope space) remains inert across the different habitats. Finally, we present the first food web ‘metaweb’ for the region, and a first assessment of network structure across the seascape.

Primary Presenter: Marie Nordström, Abo Akademi University (marie.nordstrom@abo.fi)

Authors:

Marie Nordström, University of Helsinki  (marie.nordstrom@helsinki.fi)

Phoebe Armitage, Abo Akademi University  (phoebe.armitage@abo.fi)

Rosalyn Fredriksen,   (rosalyn.fredriksen@akvaplan.niva)

Irina Zhulay, University of Bergen  (irina.zhulay@uib.no)

Fredrika Norrbin, UiT  (fredrika.norrbin@uit.no)

Anna Törnroos, Abo Akademi University  (atornroo@abo.fi)

Bodil Bluhm, UiT  (bodil.bluhm@uit.no)

Erik Bonsdorff,   (erik.bonsdorff@abo.fi)

Jorgen Christiansen, UiT  (jorgen.christiansen@uit.no)