A survey of the summer coccolithophore community in the western Barents Sea

The Barents Sea is particularly vulnerable to large-scale hydro-climatic changes associated with the polar amplification of climate change. Key oceanographical variables in this region are the seasonal development of sea-ice and the location and strength of physico-chemical gradients in the surface and subsurface water layers induced by the convergence of Arctic- and Atlantic-derived water masses. Remote sensing imagery have highlighted the increasing success of calcifying haptophytes (coccolithophores) in the summer phytoplankton production of the Barents Sea over the last 20years, as a response to an overall larger contribution of Atlantic waters to surface and sub-surface waters, as well as to enhanced sea-ice melt-induced summer stratification of the photic layer.