Consequences of the response of Arctic biodiversity to climate change for benthic ecosystem functioning

北纬高纬度地区的变暖速度是全球最高的，并正在对北极沿海和大陆架生态系统产生多重影响，包括海底群落的组成和多样性发生前所未有的变化。这些变化如何影响群落对提供和调解重要生态系统过程的贡献，如碳和宏观营养物质的固存、转化和储存，尚未得到充分考虑。这个学生项目将集中研究北部水冰湖的底栖生物群落，这是一个常年开放的水域，位于巴芬湾北部的格陵兰岛和加拿大之间，以及斯瓦尔巴群岛附近的巴伦支海，周围被海冰包围。一个关键的重点将是确定跨气候相关变化的代表性梯度的动物组成和活动的变化。这些观察结果将支持一系列广泛的实验室和实地实验，旨在确定变化的各个方面（温度、海洋酸化、光线、营养）在多大程度上改变了动物对生态系统功能的贡献。然后，该学生将在一系列预期的未来情景下，确定物种组成和行为的变化如何相互作用，影响北极大陆架一个代表性地区的碳和常量营养素的储量和流量。

Rates of warming in the high northern latitudes are amongst the highest globally and are exerting multiple effects on Arctic coastal and shelf ecosystems, including unprecedented changes in the composition and diversity of seafloor communities. How these changes affect community contributions to the provision and mediation of important ecosystem processes, such as the sequestration, transformation and storage of carbon and macro-nutrients, has not been fully considered. This studentship will focus on the benthic assemblages of the north water polynya, an area of year-round open water surrounded by sea ice that lies between Greenland and Canada in northern Baffin Bay, and the Barents Sea, near Svalbard. A key focus will be to determine changes in faunal composition and activity across a representative gradient of climate related change . These observations will underpin an extensive series of manipulative laboratory and field experiments aimed at determining the extent to which aspects of change (temperature, ocean acidification, light, nutrients) alter faunal contributions to ecosystem functioning. The studentship will then establish how changes in species composition and behaviour interact to affect the stocks and flows of carbon and macronutrients for a representative region of the Arctic shelf under a range of anticipated future scenarios.