A major ecosystem shift in the northern Bering Sea.
Until recently, northern Bering Sea ecosystems were characterized by extensive seasonal sea ice cover, high water column and sediment carbon production, and tight pelagic-benthic coupling of organic production. Here, we show that these ecosystems are shifting away from these characteristics. Changes in biological communities are contemporaneous with shifts in regional atmospheric and hydrographic forcing. In the past decade, geographic displacement of marine mammal population distributions has coincided with a reduction of benthic prey populations, an increase in pelagic fish, a reduction in sea ice, and an increase in air and ocean temperatures. These changes now observed on the shallow shelf of the northern Bering Sea should be expected to affect a much broader portion of the Pacific-influenced sector of the Arctic Ocean.
Grebmeier
Jacqueline M
JM
Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecology Group, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 10515 Research Drive, Building A, Suite 100, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37932, USA. jgrebmei@utk.edu
Overland
James E
JE
Moore
Sue E
SE
Farley
Ed V
EV
Carmack
Eddy C
EC
Cooper
Lee W
LW
Frey
Karen E
KE
Helle
John H
JH
McLaughlin
Fiona A
FA
McNutt
S Lyn
SL
D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D004372:Ducks; D017753:Ecosystem; D005399:Fishes; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry; D046448:Ice Cover; D010100:Oxygen / Q000032:analysis; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D011157:Population Dynamics; D013696:Temperature; D014856:Walruses; D014907:Whales
D010100:Oxygen