The Atlantic Ocean Is Invading the Arctic
Warmer, saltier water is threatening the species that live further North. This article was originally published in Hakai Magazine . In the Fram Strait off Greenlands west coast, Veronique Merten encountered the foot soldiers of an invasion. Merten was studying the regions biodiversity using environmental DNA, a method that allows scientists to figure out which species are living nearby by sampling the tiny pieces of genetic material they shed, such as scales, skin, and feces. And here, in a stretch of the Arctic Ocean 400 kilometers north of where theyd ever been seen before: capelin. And they were everywhere. The small baitfish found in the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is an ardent colonizer. Whenever the ocean conditions change, capelin can easily expand their range, says Merten, a marine ecologist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, in Germany. Read: The surprise hiding in the DNA of pet fish It is difficult to estimate an animals abundance based solely on the amount of its DNA in the water. Yet in Mertens samples , capelin was the species most frequently encounteredfar more than typical Arctic fish such as Greenland halibut and Arctic skate. To Merten, the evidence of so many capelin so far north is a bold sign of a worrying Arctic phenomenon: Atlantification. The Arctic Ocean is warming quicklythe Fram Strait is nearly 2 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 1900. But Atlantification is about more than rising temperatures: Its a process that is reshaping the physical and chemical conditions of the Arctic Ocean. Because of the oceans global circulation patterns, water routinely flows from the Atlantic into the Arctic; currents carry warm and relatively salty Atlantic water north. This warm Atlantic water, however, doesnt mix well with the Arctics surface water, which is relatively cool and fresh. Fresher water is less dense than saltier water, so the Arctic water tends to float on top, trapping the saltier Atlantic water deep below the oceans surface. As sea ice disappears, however, the Arctic Oceans surface is heating up. The barrier between the layers is degrading, and Atlantic water is mixing more easily into the upper layer. This may be kicking off a feedback loop, wherein warmer surface water melts more sea ice, further exposing the oceans surface to sunlight, which heats the water, melts the ice, and allows Atlantic and Arctic water to blend even more. Thats Atlantification: the transformation of the Arctic Ocean from colder, relatively fresh, and ice-capped to warmer, saltier, and progressively ice-free. Mertens discovery of abundant capelin in the Fram Straitas well as the DNA she found from other Atlantic species, such as tuna and cockeyed squid, far outside their typical rangeis further proof of just how quickly Atlantification is playing out. And its consequences could be enormous. In the Barents Sea off Russia, for example, a long-term study presents a grim picture of how Atlantification can disrupt Arctic ecosystems. As the Barents Sea has grown warmer and saltier, Atlantic species have been moving in and taking over, says Maria Fossheim, a fisheries ecologist with the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, who led that study. Fish communities in the Barents Sea, Fossheim says, have shifted north 160 kilometers in just nine yearsthree or four times the pace that [previous studies] had foreseen. By the end of her study, in 2012, Fossheim found that Atlantic species had expanded throughout the Barents Sea, while Arctic species were mostly pushed out. Mertens findings suggest that the Fram Strait may be heading in a similar direction. Because her study is the first to examine the diversity of fish in the Fram Strait, however, it is unclear how recent these changes really are. We need these baselines, Merten says. It could be that [capelin] already occurred there years ago, but no one ever checked. Either way, theyre there now. The question is: What will show up next?