Bacteria and Archaea across five Arctic Marine Areas based on number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs), or molecular species. Composition of microbial groups, with respective numbers of OTUs (pie charts) and number of OTUs at sampling locations (red dots). Data aggregated by the CBMP Sea Ice Biota Expert Network. Data source: National Center for Biotechnology Information’s (NCBI 2017) Nucleotide and PubMed databases. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/sea-ice-biota" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 38 - Figure 3.1.2 From the report draft: "Synthesis of available data was performed by using searches conducted in the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s “Nucleotide” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/guide/data-software/) and “PubMed” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) databases. Aligned DNA sequences were downloaded and clustered into OTUs by maximum likelihood phylogenetic placement."

Number of megafauna species/taxa in the Arctic (7,322 stations in total), based on recent trawl investigations. Stations with highest species/taxon number are sorted to the top, meaning that dense concentrations of stations (e.g. Eastern Canada, Barents Sea), with low species numbers are hidden behind stations with higher species numbers. Also note that species numbers are somewhat biased by differing taxonomic resolution between studies. Data from: Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Iceland; Marine Research Institute, Iceland; University of Alaska, Fairbanks, U.S.; Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Greenland; Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia; Université du Québec à Rimouski, Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Institute of Marine Research, Norway; and Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, Murmansk, Russia. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 91 - Box figure 3.3.2 Several regions of the Pan Arctic have been sampled with trawl. Even though the trawl configurations and the taxonomic level are different from area to area, we choose to consider the taxonomic richness as relatively comparative.

Harvest marine mammal Focal Ecosystem Component stocks in Arctic Marine Areas. Harvested without quotas, with quotas or not harvested. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/marine-mammals" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 158 - Figure 3.6.4

Seasonal abundance (1000 individuals m- 2) of sea ice meiofauna at landfast sea ice (Barrow, 2005-2006, A and C) and pack ice (North of Svalbard, 2015, B and D). A and B show larval stages (polychaete juveniles and nauplii, respectively), while C and D show nematodes and harpacticoid copepods, respectively. Circles represent individual cores (n = 107 for A and C, and 39 for B and D), shading the extent of minimum as well as maximum values, and blue line indicates mean values. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/sea-ice-biota" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 43 - Figure 3.1.5 From the report draft: "In addition to showing composition and peak abundance ranges, we illustrate the phenology of ice meiofauna over the ice-covered season in the entire combined data set. For this purpose, the data were normalized to the daylight hours at each location during the date of sampling using R package geosphere (Hijmans 2015) and a method described in Forsythe et al. (1995). This was necessary, because ‘spring’ arrives earlier at lower latitudes than at higher latitudes, so that using month or day of year would obscure the pan-Arctic integration of the data. Other influential factors such as snow depth, ice thickness and nutrient concentrations were not accounted for in this analysis."

The Arctic marine food web includes the exchange of energy and nutrition, and also provides cultural, social and spiritual meaning for human communities. Adapted from Darnis et al. (2012) and Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska (2015). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/marine" target="_blank">Chapter 2</a> - Page 23 - Figure 2.2a

Workflow of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/marine" target="_blank">Chapter 1</a> - Page 13 - Figure 1.1

In 2012 and 2013, Fisheries and Oceans Canada conducted benthic imagery surveys in the Davis Strait and Baffin Basin in two areas then closed to bottom fishing, the Hatton Basin Voluntary Closure (now the Hatton Basin Conservation Area) and the Narwhal Closure (now partially in the Disko Fan Conservation Area). The photo transects were established as long-term biodiversity monitoring sites to monitor the impact of human activity, including climate change, on the region’s benthic marine biota in accordance with the protocols of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program established by the Council of Arctic Flora and Fauna. These images were analyzed in a techncial report that summarises the epibenthic megafauna found in seven image transects from the Disko Fan Conservation Area. A total of 480 taxa were found, 280 of which were identified as belonging to one of the following phyla: Annelida, Arthropoda, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Chordata, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, Mollusca, Nemertea, and Porifera. The remaining 200 taxa could not be assigned to a phylum and were categorised as Unidentified. Each taxon was identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level, typically class, order, or family. The summaries for each of the taxa include their identification numbers in the World Register of Marine Species and Integrated Taxonomic Information System’s databases, taxonomic hierarchies, images, and written descriptions. The report is intended to provide baseline documentation of the epibenthic megafauna in the Disko Fan Conservation Area, and serve as a taxonomic resource for future image analyses in the Arctic. Baker, E., Beazley, L., McMillan, A., Rowsell, J. and Kenchington, E. 2018. Epibenthic Megafauna of the Disko Fan Conservation Area in the Davis Strait (Eastern Arctic) Identified from In Situ Benthic Image Transects. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3272: vi + 388 p.

Polar cod in the Barents Sea. Acoustic estimate of polar cod 1-year-old and older (green) and pelagic trawl index of age 0-group abundance (yellow). Source: Joint IMR-PINRO ecosystem survey (Prozorkevich 2016). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/marine-fishes" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 116 - Figure 3.4.3

Sea ice meiofauna composition (pie charts) and total abundance (red circles) across the Arctic, compiled by the CBMP Sea Ice Biota Expert Network from 27 studies between 1979 and 2015. Scaled circles show total abundance per individual ice core while pie charts show average relative contribution by taxon per Arctic Marine Area (AMA). Number of ice cores for each AMA is given in parenthesis after region name. Note that studies were conducted at different times of the year, with the majority between March and August (see 3.1 Appendix). The category ‘other’ includes young stages of bristle worms (Polychaeta), mussel shrimps (Ostracoda), forams (Foraminifera), hydroid polyps (Cnidaria), comb jellies (Ctenophora), sea butterflies (Pteropoda), marine mites (Acari) and unidentified organisms. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/sea-ice-biota" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 40 - Figure 3.1.4 From the report draft: "Here, we synthesized 19 studies across the Arctic conducted between 1979 and 2015, including unpublished sources (B. Bluhm, R. Gradinger, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway; H. Hop, Norwegian Polar Institute; K. Iken, University of Alaska Fairbanks). These studies sampled landfast sea ice and offshore pack ice, both first- and multiyear ice (Appendix 3.1). Meiofauna abundances reported in individual data sources were converted to individuals m-2 of sea ice assuming that ice density was 95% of that in melted ice. Due to the low taxonomic resolution in the reviewed studies, ice meiofauna were grouped into: Copepoda, nauplii (for copepods as well as other taxa with naupliar stages), Nematoda, Polychaeta (mostly juveniles, but also trochophores), flatworms (Acoelomorpha and Platyhelminthes; these phyla have mostly been reported as one category), Rotifera, and others (which include meroplanktonic larvae other than Polychaeta, Ostracoda, Foraminifera, Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Pteropoda, Acari, and unidentified organisms). Percentage of total abundance for each group was calculated for each ice core, and these percentages were used for regional averages. Maximum available ice core length was used in data analysis, but 50% of these ice cores included only the bottom 10 cm of the ice, 12% the bottom 5 cm, 10% the bottom 2 cm, and 11% the entire ice-thickness. Data from 617 cores were used."

Arctic Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) and Arctic Marine Areas of Heightened Ecological and Cultural Significance as identified in the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) IIC report. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/marine" target="_blank">Chapter 1</a> - Page 16 - Box Figure 1.1