Researchers investigate the cumulative impacts of oil pollution, ocean warming, and coastal freshening on the feeding of Arctic copepods. The copepods' sensitivity to crude oil and climate change can potentially have large-scale impacts on the Arctic marine food web.
Researchers investigate the cumulative impacts of oil pollution, ocean warming, and coastal freshening on the feeding of Arctic copepods. The copepods' sensitivity to crude oil and climate change can potentially have large-scale impacts on the Arctic marine food web.
The Arctic is exposed to multiple human pressures such as pollution and climate change. Still, not much is known about the cumulative impacts on the Arctic environment. Researchers from the Scandinavian countries therefore teamed up to investigate the cumulative effects of crude oil, ocean warming and coastal freshening on the copepod species Calanus glacialis and Calanus finmarchicus.
Copepods as food web health indicators
We examined how the copepods’ feeding responded to scenarios of different temperature, salinity, and oil, and as a proxy for feeding we measured faecal pellet production, says researcher Øystein Varpe, University of Bergen (UiB) and NINA affiliate. Varpe and PhD candidate Iliana Ntinou joined this DTU Aqua led study in Greenland via links emerging from the Climate Narratives project at UiB.
Temperature, salinity, and oil all had significant both single and joint effects on faecal pellet production, although oil had the strongest effect, with a reduction in faecal pellet production of 68 - 83 %.
The results show that Arctic copepods are sensitive to changes in the concentration of crude oil and climate change in the form of ocean warming and coastal freshening. Changes in the feeding of these abundant copepods can in turn have potential large-scale impacts on higher trophic levels in the Arctic marine food web.
Contact Øystein Varpe
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