Deep demersal fish communities respond rapidly to warming in a frontal region between Arctic and Atlantic waters.

ABSTRACT: The assessment of climate impact on marine communities dwelling deeper than the well-studied shelf seas has been hampered by the lack of long-term data. For a long time, the prevailing expectation has been that thermal stability in deep ocean layers will delay ecosystem responses to warming. Few observational studies have challenged this view and indicated that deep organisms can respond exceptionally fast to physical change at the sea surface. To address the depth-specific impact of climate change, we investigated spatio-temporal changes in fish community structure along a bathymetry gradient of 150-1500 m between 1998 and 2016 in East Greenland. Here, the Arctic East Greenland Current and the Atlantic Irminger Current meet and mix, representing a sub-Arctic transition zone. We found the

SUBMITTER: Emblemsvag M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9304235 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature