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On the terrestrial and freshwater invertebrate diversity of the High Arctic archipelago of Svalbard: a revised species inventory and synopsis of the community composition
Arctic terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity is generally poorly known, but the archipelago of Svalbard has one of the most up-to-date inventories of its terrestrial and freshwater faunas of any Arctic region, offering a baseline for long term monitoring of invertebrate communities in space and time. Since the most recent review of the Svalbard invertebrate fauna was produced in 2014, knowledge of this fauna has developed and this inventory is here critically revised and updated. Our aims are (1) to critically review the inventory based on current taxonomic knowledge, (2) publish the complete species inventory, including cross-referencing to the relevant publications, in an open access data archive (GBIF), and (3) highlight the particular advantages that working in Svalbard may bring for scientists working on terrestrial, freshwater, and cryospheric environments. The inventory contains a total 1091 valid species names or interim names. A gap analysis in the Barcode of Life Data Systems reveals that 50% of the species currently documented from Svalbard lack COI (Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1) barcode reference sequences in this database. Gaps in our knowledge of the Svalbard fauna and how these may be resolved are discussed.
The impact of marine vertebrates on polar terrestrial invertebrate communities
AbstractMarine birds and pinnipeds which come to land to breed, rest and moult are widely known to fertilize adjacent terrestrial ecosystems, with cascading effects on vegetation and other trophic levels. We provide a synthesis of the consequences of allochthonous nutrient enrichment for terrestrial invertebrate communities within and around marine vertebrate aggregation sites and nutrient sources in the High Arctic and Continental and Maritime Antarctic, the most nutrient-poor and environmentally extreme parts of the polar regions. Using a combination of literature review (identifying 19 articles from the Arctic Svalbard archipelago and 12 from different Antarctic locations) and new analyses of available datasets of springtail, mite and tardigrade community composition, we confirmed that terrestrial invertebrate abundance and species richness tended to increase, and their community compositions changed, as a result of marine vertebrate fertilisation in both polar regions. These changes were significantly greater on talus slopes enriched by kittiwakes, guillemots and little auks in the Arctic, as compared to the edges of penguin colonies in the Antarctic. Both these habitat areas were typically abundantly vegetated and provided the most favourable microhabitat conditions for terrestrial invertebrates. The most heavily disturbed and manured areas within Antarctic penguin rookeries and seal wallows, generally on flat or gently sloping ground, were typically characterised by extremely low invertebrate diversity. In the Arctic, only sites directly beneath densely-occupied bird cliffs were to some extent comparably barren. Invertebrate responses are dependent on a combination of vertebrate activity, local topography and vegetation development.