Water Column
What’s here?
This section provides images and background on the groups of organisms that call the water column their home. It is intended to be primarily visual, and provide brief detail, natural history, and known distribution of species.
The site will grow over time as more images are collected. Higher resolution versions of most images are available upon request.
One factor that complicates diversity of the Arctic is the inflow of waters from the adjoining oceans that carry their fauna into the Arctic Ocean. For many imported species it is simply too cold for them to be able to grow and reproduce, but they can be present in high numbers compared to the truly Arctic species. Thus, the shallow Chukchi Sea north of Bering Strait is almost completely composed of North Pacific species, while the Norwegian and Barents Seas are often dominated by North Atlantic Ocean species. The truly Arctic species are most prevalent in the deep basins.
More on water column diversity...
Page Author: Russ Hopcroft
Created: January 4, 2008