Contemporary state of bottom communities of the Kara and Barents Seas P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology White Sea Biological Station Moscow State University V. Kozlovskiy A. Isachenko M. Chikina A. Udalov

Bottom communities 2 Benthic or bottom communities consist of organisms that attached to the seabed or closely associated with it throughout their entire life cycle SIGNIFICANCE biodiversity conservation mariculture as food supply as an object of monitoring

Benthos (unlike pelagic organisms) – is one of the most informative objects used for ecosystem monitoring due to its long life cycles, time stability and ability to represent changes in ecosystems 3 Bottom communities as an object for ecosystem monitoring

Anthropogenic impact 4 Freshwater discharge Climate change Trawling Oil and gas industry from: In order to evaluate the role of anthropogenic influence it is necessary to have an understanding of natural variability in different ecosystems. The ability to distinguish different types of human impact is also of great importance.

Barents and Kara Seas 5 (by Loeng, 1991; Zatsepin et.al, 2010) Hydrology

Barents and Kara Seas 6 Ice regime

Benthic communities in Barents and Kara Seas 7 Barents SeaKara Sea Arctic Basin from: (Filatova, Zenkevitch, 1957) Vertical distribution of communities in Arctic Seas 1 – Communities with dominance of bivalves on muddy-sand sediments 2 – Portlandia arctica community 3 – Deepwater communities with dominance of echinoderms 4 – Atlantic bathyal fauna 5 – Arctic bathyal fauna m

8 Benthic communities in Barents and Kara Seas

In the Barents Sea, trawling contributes significantly to decrease of benthic biomass In some areas of the Norwegian shelf trawling tracks occur every 10 meters (Buhl-Mortensen et al., 2013) Trawling impact on benthic communities in Barents and Kara Seas Biomass g/m 2 years Trawling hours trawling hours biomass from: Denisenko, 2008 from: DNV report 16AKYSL-15/

10 Oil and gas industry in Barents and Kara Seas from: Significant part of Norwegian and Russian sectors of the Barents and Kara Seas is allocated for oil and gas production, but at the moment mineral extraction is carried out only at two sites, although seismic survey and exploration drilling are quite active

Petroleum activities in Kara and South-Eastern Barents Seas 11 Production on Prirazlomnoye oil field Gas pipeline in Baidaratskaya Bay Exploration drilling on Dolginskoye oil field, In the Ob and Taz Bays, on the University-1 well, on the Rusanovskoye, Leningradskoye and Charasavay-more gas condensate fields Construction of LNG factory in Sabetta

12 Impact of Oil and gas activities on benthic communities Littoral and coastal areas are most vulnerable to oil spill Bioremediation in the Arctic zone is a slow process Damage to benthic communities as a consequence of anchor operations, sediment dumping and settling of drill cuttings

Habitat mapping 13 Habitat mapping implies plotting the distribution and extent of habitats to create a map with complete coverage of the seabed showing distinct boundaries separating adjacent habitats using geophysical, geological, biological, hydrological, chemical, and video data. (from: Kostylev et al., 2001)

Habitat mapping includes 14 Remote methods Direct methods Acoustic profiling Video It is desirable to make a sampling design by direct methods using data obtained by remote methods Biological and geological samplingHydrological and chemical measurements

15 Habitat mapping (from: Kostylev et al., 2001) Canada Norway France USA

16 Habitat mapping in Russian Seas In Russia, habitat mapping activity was carried out at WSBS (the White Sea). Several surveys were conducted on Arctica islandica community using remote (SSS, Video) and direct (grab sampling) methods Underwater landscape of Vysokiy island vicinities. Main habitats indicated

Habitat mapping in Arctic Seas 17 august 2010 september In order to create a clear picture of the benthic communities functioning in the Barents and Kara seas, it is desirable to carry out a comprehensive mapping of the seabed in Russian waters using the experience of other mapping projects During mapping of benthic habitats in estuarine areas it is important to take into consideration the fluctuations of hydrological parameters It is desirable to use existing geophysical and geological data obtained in the course of oil and gas field development salinity (‰)

Goals 18 Monitoring of benthic communities in the Barents and Kara seas Study of previously unexplored areas Habitat mapping using remote-sensing methods (using existing geophysical and geological data ) The use of monitoring data for analysis of changes in benthic communities, as well as the identification and separation of the factors causing these changes

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