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."

Trends in abundance or diversity of sea ice biota Focal Ecosystem Components across each Arctic Marine Area. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 4 - Page 177 - Figure 4.1

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.

Distribution of Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) based on participation in research sampling, examination of museum voucher collections, literature and molecular genetic analysis (Mecklenburg et al. 2011, 2014, 2016, Mecklenburg and Steinke 2015). Map shows the maximum distribution observed from point data and includes both common and rare locations. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/marine-fishes" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 120 - Figure 3.4.7

Estimated consumption of polar cod by Atlantic cod in the Barents Sea (yellow line) and biomass of the Atlantic cod stock in the Barents Sea (red line) (ICES 2016). The blue line is the biomass of the Barents Sea polar cod (Prozorkevich 2016). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/marine-fishes" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 116 - Box figure 3.4.1

Changes expected or underway in the of energy flow in the High Arctic marine environment STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/marine" target="_blank">Chapter 2</a> - Page 23 - Figure 2.2b

Ice algal community similarity of central Russian Arctic drifting stations from the 1980s to 2010s based on unpublished data by I.A. Melnikov, Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. The closer two samples (symbols) are to each other in this multi-dimensional scaling plot, the more similar their algal communities were, based on presence/absence of algal species. Samples from the same year tend to be similar and group together on the plot, with some exceptions. Dispersion across the plot suggests that community structure has changed over the decades, although sampling locations in the central Arctic have also shifted, thus introducing bias. An analysis of similarity (PRIMER version 6) with a high Global R=0.80 indicates strong community difference among decades (global R=0 indicates no difference, R=1 indicates complete dissimilarity). Regional differences were low (global R=0.26) and difference by ice type moderate (global R=0.38). Grey arrows point to the very different and only two samples from 2013. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/sea-ice-biota" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 47 - Figure 3.1.8 "For the analysis of possible interannual trends in the ice algal community, we used a data set from the Central Arctic, the area most consistently and frequently sampled (Melnikov 2002, I. Melnikov, Shirshov Institute, unpubl. data). Multivariate community structure was analysed based on a presence-absence matrix of cores from 1980 to 2013. The analysis is biased by the varying numbers of analysed cores taken per year ranging widely from 1 to 24, ice thickness between 0.6 and 4.2 m, and including both first-year as well as multiyear sea ice. Locations included were in a bounding box within 74.9 to 90.0 °N and 179.9°W to 176.6°E and varied among years."

Cumulative scores of various environmental and anthropogenic drivers of change of the benthic ecosystem across the eight Arctic Marine Areas (AMA). A cumulative score is the median score of sub-regions per AMA (Table 3.3.1). Median score for the whole Arctic is given in the centre. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 100 - Figure 3.3.7

Benthic macro-infauna biomass in the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas from 1970 to 2012, displayed as decadal pattern Adapted from Grebmeier et al. (2015a) with permission from Elsevier. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 98 - Figure 3.3.6 Cumulative scores of benthos drivers for each of the 8 CAFF-AMAs. The cumulative scores are taken from the last column of Table 3.3.1. The flower chart/plot helps to visualize the data.

Temperature and copepod abundance in Zackenberg, northeastern Greenland. Temperature is measured at 80 m for Microcalanus and 5 m for Pseudocalanus (Arendt et al. 2016). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/plankton" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 76 - Figure 3.2.7