While a seasonal ice cover limits light penetration into both polar seas for up to ten months a year, its presence is not entirely negative. The mixed layer under sea ice will generally be shallower than in open water at the same latitude and season. Ice forms a substrate on which primary production can be concentrated, a condition which contrasts with the generally dilute nutritional conditions which prevail in the remaining ocean. The combination of a shallow, generally stable mixed layer with a close proximity to abundant food make the under-ice zone a suitable nursery for both pelagic and benthic species, an upside-down benthos for opportunistic substrate browsers, and a rich feeding environment for species often considered to be neritic in temperate environments. Where the ice cover is not continuous there may be a retreating ice edge that facilitates the seasonal production of phytoplankton primarily through increased stability from the melt water. Ice edge blooms similarly encourage secondary production by pelagic animals. Pseudocalanus acuspes, which may be the most abundant and productive copepod in north polar latitudes, initiates growth at the start of the “spring bloom” of epontic algae, reaching sexual maturity at breakup or slightly before. In the Southern Hemisphere, the small neritic copepod Paralabidocera antarctica and adult krill have been observed to utilize ice algae. Calanus hyperboreus breeds in the dark season at depth and its buoyant eggs, slowly developing on the ascent, reach the under-ice layer in April as nauplii ready to benefit from the primary production there. On the other hand, C. glacialis may initiate ontogenetic migrations and reproduction in response to increased erosion of ice algae due to solar warming and melting at the ice-water interface. While the same species in a phytoplankton bloom near the ice edge reproduces actively, those under still-consolidated ice nearby can have immature gonads. Diel migration and diel feeding rhythms under or near the ice have also been observed for several species. In the Northern Hemisphere larger zooplanktonic species may take two, three, or possibly more years to reach maturity, but the grand strategy, apparently used by all, is to assure that their young have reached active feeding stages by the time of maximum primary production in the water column so that maximum growth, often, but not always, with emphasis on lipid storage, can occur during the often brief, but usually intense, summer bloom. The rate of growth of arctic or antarctic zooplankton is not so important as assuring a high level of fecundity when maturity comes. Overwintering is probably not a great hardship and diapause may not be a useful strategy because the environmental temperature is constantly near the freezing point of sea water, and basal metabolism accordingly low. Nonetheless, feeding behaviour and metabolic rates have strong seasonal signals. In the absence of other stimuli, light must be involved in the transformation from winter to summer metabolism and visa versa but the mechanisms still remain obscure. |
