The ice fauna in the shallow southwestern Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean

Abstract Sympagic fauna were studied in seasonal fast ice adjacent to Narwhal Island during the spring of 1979 and 1980, with emphasis on the origin of the fauna and its relationship to contiguous pelagic and benthic communities. The results of five subprojects are reviewed and compared with recent literature. Within Stefansson Sound, inshore of Narwhal Island, total sympagic meiofaunal densities and species diversity were low. In March 1979, the dominant taxa were polychaete larvae and crustacean nauplii, while in May the dominant group was Nematoda. Total numerical densities were low, ranging from 4500 to 8000 per m 2 . During the spring of 1980 large numbers of invertebrate fauna concentrated at the undersurface of seasonal sea ice on the inner western Beaufort Sea continental shelf, seaward of Narwhal Island. The sympagic meiofauna were comprised primarily of benthic harpacticoid and cyclopoid copepods, turbellarians, nematode worms, and polychaete worm larvae. Total meiofaunal densities increased from about 6000 per m 2 in April to about 482,000 per m 2 in June. All life stages of Cyclopina gracilis (Copepoda: Cyclopoida) were present in the ice. This species appeared to reproduce continuously from early April to early June during the study period. The Harpacticus sp. (Copepoda: Harpaticoida) population consisted of one cohort whose individuals grew in size from April to early June. The sympagic macrofauna consisted entirely of amphipod crustaceans, primarily comprised of benthic species. Population size structure of the amphipod Pseudalibrotus (= Onisimus) litoralis was bimodal and there was a lack of intermediate growth stages. These characteristics indicate that this species has a two-year life cycle in the Beaufort Sea. The highest growth rate for P. litoralis coincided with maximal ice algal production. P. litoralis fed largely on meiofaunal Crustacea and amphipod fragments in April, but its diet switched to ice algae during the height of the bloom in late May-early June. Results indicate that P. litoralis , normally a shallow benthic species, uses the ice undersurface as a spawning site and a temporary nursery ground for its young during the spring. Beneath the ice, the input of total organic carbon to the bottom remained at fairly constant low levels from April through early June, 1980. Little carbon, exported from the ice community beneath the sea ice, reached the shallow sea floor. However, this food source is available to the benthos earlier than that from phytoplanktonic or benthic microalgal production that occurs later in the season after ice breakup.