Benthic communities regulate numerous ecosystem processes and rely almost exclusively on the sinking of organic matter from the pelagic. The Arctic is one of the three regions on Earth that is warming more rapidly than anywhere else. In the last 20 years, drastic changes in sea ice cover and accelerated glacial melt were observed on the Northeast Greenland (NEG) shelf which might have altered benthic community structure and their function in this region. In September/October 2017, NEG soft-bottom communities were sampled along with environmental variables. We found that food availability for benthos was 7 times lower than in the early 1990s, while macrofauna abundances were 5 times lower. This suggests that the strong bentho-pelagic coupling, so characteristic for the Arctic, might have weakened since the 1990s. In this thesis, we would like to investigate the meiobenthic response to these changes in food availability, both in terms of abundances and community structure. These results will contribute to a better understanding of rapid climate change effects on this pristine and vulnerable ecosystem.
This work involves meiofauna extraction from sediment samples, meiofauna counting on higher taxon level and slide preparation for nematode identification. If time allows, the student can be involved in statistical analysis and data interpretation.
