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Arctic PRoductivity in the seasonal Ice ZonE (Arctic PRIZE)

The Arctic PRoductivity in the seasonal Ice ZonE (Arctic PRIZE) project is a £2.9 million, four year (2017-2021) research programme funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as part of the Changing Arctic Ocean (CAO) programme. The aim of the Arctic PRIZE project is to understand how seasonality, ice cover and ocean properties determine the large-scale ecosystem structure of the Arctic Ocean in order to support the development of models making projections of ecosystem response to reducing sea ice cover.

Changes in sea ice are resulting in changes in water column properties and the availability of light and nutrients which results in two questions for the project:

• How will the reduction in sea ice change ocean mixing and the amount of light that reaches the surface ocean?
• How does this alter the timing and rates of phytoplankton growth and the supply of food to pelagic and seabed communities?

Further information can be found on the Changing Arctic Ocean Arctic PRIZE webpage.

Participants

There are eight organisations involved in the Arctic PRIZE project, these are:

• Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS)
• University of Oxford
• National Oceanography Centre (NOC)
• University of Strathclyde
• University of St Andrews
• University of Edinburgh
• Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC)
• University of Huddersfiled

In addition to these core organisations, there are 22 international collaborators involved in the project.

Research Details

The core objective of the Arctic PRIZE project is to investigate the seasonally-varying interplay between physical forcings and nutrient fluxes, and their impact on primary productivity and related zooplankton dynamics and benthic communities. The focus area is the seasonal ice zone of the Barents Sea as this is a highly productive region that is undergoing considerable change in sea ice distribution. The project will also address the under sampled seasonal transition from winter into the post bloom summer period. There is a need to develop predictive tools within Arctic PRIZE to assess how the Arctic ecosystems will respond to reducing sea ice cover. The project is split into five integrated work packages:

1. How do the key physical parameters of mixing, stratification and light vary between open water and under ice and how do they evolve during the winter to summer transition?
2. How will nutrient supply, uptake and cycling respond to sea ice and ocean mixing changes in a warming Arctic?
3. How does pelagic phytoplankton production respond, in timing, magnitude, and taxonomic composition, to seasonal and spatial variation in nutrients and light?
4. How are zooplankton migratory behaviours modified by vertical gradients of stratification, light, phytoplankton and predation?
5. How are variations in surface productivity reflected in spatial and seasonal temporal changes in benthic community composition?

Fieldwork and Data Collection

The fieldwork for the project includes observations of water column properties and community composition using standard ship-based techniques, autonomous vehicles, moored instruments, seals and remote sensing. From these data, new, well validated models will be developed that will be merged back into UK and international efforts to project the future of pan-Arctic ecosystems through collaboration with leading modelling groups. The research cruises are as follows: