Maria Wlodarska-Kowalczuk

Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences · Marine Ecology

Seagrasses and associated macrophytes are important components of coastal systems as ecosystem engineers, habitat formers, and providers of food and shelter for other organisms. The positive impacts of seagrass vegetation on zoobenthic abundance and diversity (as compared to bare sands) are well documented, but only in surveys performed in summer,...

We report the first observation of large red cyanobacterial mats in the southern Baltic Sea. The mats (up to 2.5 m in diameter) were observed by SCUBA divers at 7.7 m depth on loamy sediments in the Gulf of Gdańsk in mid-November 2013. The main structure of the mat was formed by cyanobacteria Spirulina subsalsa Oersted ex Gomont; a number of other...

a b s t r a c t Seagrass meadows can act as ecosystem engineers, i.e., organisms that modify the availability of re-sources to other organisms. However, their possible positive impacts depend on the characteristics of the vegetation, and these can vary strongly seasonally. This study assesses seasonal variability in macrophyte taxonomic composition...

We present a cross-system comparison of benthic species pools, species diversity, functional complexity and rarity in 2 typical Arctic coastal systems: an open shelf marginal sea and fjords (semi-enclosed, geologically younger basins remaining under strong terrestrial influences). A total of 388 van Veen grab samples were collected in the Barents S...

This study provided new data on shell mineralogy in 23 Arctic bivalve species. The majority of examined species had purely aragonitic shells. Furthermore, we measured concentrations of Al, Ba, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P, S, Sr and Zn in 542 shells representing 25 Arctic bivalve species. Species-related differences in concentrations of specific elemen...

Complex bottom topography and the presence of floating ice significantly complicate the use of traditional sampling methods in Arctic coastal waters, forcing to look for alternative approaches. One such technique is underwater imagery, which has grown in popularity in recent decades based on its effectiveness in hard-to-reach places. We demonstrate...

This is the first study presenting temporal changes of the macrofauna biodiversity along the bathymetric gradient from the shelf to abyssal depths in the eastern Fram Striat. In this region, between 2004 and 2008, a significant increase in surface water temperature was observed due to the transport of Atlantic water from lower latitudes and was def...

Seagrass has been widely recognized as ecosystem engineers and habitat-builders increasing biodiversity and abundance of associated fauna. However, seagrass habitats are being degraded globally due to modification of coastline, terrestrial inputs, and climate change. While the effects of seagrass meadows vegetation density on associated macrofauna...

In February 2018, the Government of Poland and the International Seabed Authority signed a 15-year contract for exploration of polymetallic sulfide deposits on a section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge extending between the Hayes, Atlantic and Kane transform faults (32°45.378’ N, 39°57.760’ W to 26°14.411’ N, 44°18.008’ W). The contractor is obliged to c...

Complex bottom topography and the presence of floating ice significantly complicates the use of traditional sampling methods in Arctic coastal waters, forcing to look for alternative approaches. One such technique is underwater imagery, which has grown in popularity in recent decades based on its effectiveness in hard-to-reach places. We demonstrat...

Kelp forests supply many important ecosystem services that often are dependent on kelp morphological characteristics. Understanding the relationship between environmental factors and the morphological response of macroalgae is essential. The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of factors associated with glacial activity and depth o...

Instytut Oceanologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk przechowuje 77500 okazów przyrodniczych z obszarów morskich, gromadzonych od 1985 r., czyli od początku istnienia Pracowni Ekosystemów Arktyki, przekształconej później w Zakład Ekologii Morza. Większość zbiorów stanowi zooplankton (około 36000 okazów) zebrany podczas corocznych rejsów badawczych statku s/...

Benthic megafauna (organisms large enough to be visible on seabed photographs) are regarded as important for carbon cycling in benthic habitats. They are a food source for many predators like fish and marine mammals and may stimulate carbon mineralization in sediment by bioturbation. However, few studies address these basic characteristics of megab...

The thermophilic bivalve Mytilus spp. complex has re-appeared in the high Arctic in Svalbard after a thousand years, with the first recent indication of its appearance in 2002 at the mouth of Isfjorden on the west coast. We examine its genetic affinity to selected North Atlantic populations and the modes of spread that may be responsible for its re...

Until recently, polar night constituted truly a “mare incognitum” of our times. Yet, the first records from this very little-explored period showcased a surprisingly rich and active ecosystem. This investigation aims to reveal the level of scavenger activity during both Arctic polar night and day. It compares the shallow-water scavenging fauna obse...

Ecosystems of arctic fjords are exposed to various natural and human-induced stressors that shape the taxonomic structure and functioning. Glacial activity and meltwater inflows together with advection of sea water masses from shelves form variety of environmental gradients that have been shown to influence marine biota. Some of these stressors lik...

Over thirty species of littoral marine Gammaridea occur along the coasts of the North Atlantic. From one to several species can coexist in a single region. There is an evident, inverse relationship between egg incubation time and temperature (from 14 to >120 days) and consequent trends in the size of the animals on reaching maturity (from 5 mm in w...

This is the first study presents the patterns and environmental controls of benthic biomass size spectra, carbon demand, and production along the entire bathymetric gradient from the shelf to the abyssal depths in the transition zone between the northern North-Atlantic and the central Arctic Ocean. The material was collected at 17 stations (76 - 55...

Global warming is expected to cause reductions in organism body size, a fundamental biological unit important in determining biological processes. Possible effects of increasing temperature on biomass size spectra in coastal benthic communities were investigated. We hypothesized higher proportions of smaller size classes in warmer conditions. Soft...

The motivation behind this study is the progression of global warming, which severely affects the entire Arctic and could have effects on macroalgal assemblages. Three sampling sites were located at different distances to glacier fronts to study the effect of glacial exposure on macroalgal community composition and standing stock. In addition, the...

Fjords have been recently recognized as hot spots of organic carbon (Corg) sequestration in marine sediments. This study aims to identify regional and local drivers of variability of Corg burial in north Atlantic and Arctic fjords. We provide a comparative quantification of Corg, δ¹³C, photosynthetic pigments content, benthic biomass, consumption,...

Arctic marine ecosystems are often assumed to be highly vulnerable to ongoing climate change, and are expected to undergo significant shifts in structure and function. Community shifts in benthic fauna are likely to result from changes in key physico-chemical drivers, such as ocean warming, but there is little ecological data on most Arctic species...

Size spectra are important descriptors of community structure and can indicate changes in community functioning in response to shifts in environmental conditions. There are relatively few assessments of benthic size spectra, and most are based on summer samples alone. Processes influencing size spectra, such as recruitment and predation pressure, v...

Knowledge on the causes and consequences that structure benthic communities is essential to understand and conserve Arctic ecosystems. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge on the effects of abiotic and biotic factors on species interactions and community traits, i.e. diversity, structure, and functioning of Arctic coastal hard- and s...

It is predicted that a diverse array of functional traits in species‐rich assemblages can lead to strong resource partitioning among coexisting species and moderate a wider spectrum of resource use. We compared two benthic communities in an Arctic fjord: a species‐rich community (in an outer basin) and an impoverished community (in a glacially impa...

Body size is a basic animal feature that defines its functioning in multispecies assemblages. Polychaetes are numerically dominant components of marine macrobenthos, playing a key role in benthic productivity. They are also the most problematic group regarding body‐size assessments due to common fragmentation of fragile bodies during sample process...

Seagrass meadows ecosystem engineering effects are correlated to their density (which is in turn linked to seasonal cycles) and often cannot be perceived below a given threshold level of engineer density. The density and biomass of seagrass meadows (Z. marina) together with associated macrophytes undergo substantial seasonal changes, with clear dec...

Surveys of terrestrial microinvertebrate morphometry, especially spatial patterns of body size at wider geographical scales, including the polar regions, are very scarce. In this study, we focused on Tardigrada, common limno-terrestrial microinvertebrates. Considering Bergmann's rule, originally formulated for endothermic animals, we tested the hyp...

Polar marine regions are facing rapid changes induced by climate change, with consequences for local faunal populations, but also for overall ecosystem functioning, goods and services. Yet given the complexity of polar marine ecosystems, predicting the mode, direction and extent of these consequences remains challenging. Trait-based approaches are...

The diversity of invertebrate fauna associated with kelp holdfasts fauna was surveyed in a high Arctic glacial fjord (76°N, Hornsund, Svalbard). The effects of glacier-derived disturbance (three sites with varying levels of mineral sedimentation rates) on faunal species richness and composition were studied based on 239 collected algal rhizoids. Th...

This supplement presents image sources as one example to help overcome lack of trait data in polar (and other) areas. Pros and cons are discussed.

This supplement explains how the 323 (standardized) traits found via our literature survey of 233 marine trait-based studies where grouped into 20 topical clusters (see Supplement 1: Degen EcolIndApp1 2018). Based on these 20 clusters the Table 2 in the main text was constructed.

This supplement (excel spread sheet) includes the references to 233 peer-reviewed publications that focus on marine species traits. Additional to the reference, the ecosystem component, research topic, trait label, and source are given. The trait labels are listed 1) as occurring in the original reference, 2) in a standardized form, and 3) belongin...

Body size is one of the most important biological characters, as it defines many aspects of organismal functioning at the individual and community level. As body size controls many ecological aspects of species, it is often used as a proxy for the status of the ecosystem. So far no consistent mechanism driving size shift has been proposed. In this...

We present the results of species distribution modeling conducted on macrobenthic occurrence data collected between 2002 and 2014 in Arctic fjord – Hornsund. We focus on species from Mollusca and Crustacea taxa. This study investigates the importance of individual environmental factors for benthic species distribution, with a special emphasis on bo...

Two high latitude fjords of Spitsbergen (Hornsund 77°N and Kongsfjorden 79°N) are regarded as being highly productive (70g and 50gCm⁻²year⁻¹) and having organic-rich sediments. Hornsund has more organic matter in its sediments (8%), nearly half of it of terrestrial origin, while most of that in Kongsfjorden (5%) comes from fresh, marine sources (mi...

Lacydonia (Polychaeta: Phyllodocida) is a poorly known genus containing 16 species that are sporadically collected in low densities all over the world oceans. During three cruises (in June 2014 in Ullsfjorden, northern Norway, in January 2015 in Kongsfjorden, and in June 2012 in Smeerenburg, Svalbard) nine specimens of Lacydonia eliasoni were found...

This study examines the performance of pelagic and benthic Malacostraca in two glacial fjords of west Spitsbergen: Kongsfjorden, strongly influenced by warm Atlantic waters, and Hornsund which, because of the strong impact of the cold Sørkapp Current, has more of an Arctic character. The material was collected during 12 summer expeditions organized...

Good information on coastal marine conditions is essential for management and planning. This project aimed to integrate, model and make available marine base maps for Svalbard. Depth, ocean current speed, salinity, temperature, different terrain types (incl. slope, basins) and areas of avalanches and unsorted sediment have been modelled/delineated...

This study explores whether the marked seasonality in pelagic productivity and phytodetritus fluxes to the sea bottom in an Arctic fjord is reflected in variability of benthic communities in terms of taxonomic composition and standing stocks. Three stations located along the Kongsfjorden (west Spitsbergen) axis were visited in four seasons (May, Au...

Mature ecosystems sequester little organic carbon (Corg) in sediments, as the complex and effective food webs consume most available organic matter within the water column and sediment, in contrast to young systems, where a large proportion of Corg is buried in deeper sediment layers. In this paper we hypothesize that “warmer” Atlantic water influe...

Seagrass meadows are highly productive habitats that can act as ‘blue carbon sinks’ in coastal ecosystems by facilitating sedimentation and trapping particles. However, the magnitude and occurrence of these effects may be species and density-dependent. The present study is the first estimation of seagrass sediment carbon sink in the temperate Zoste...

As a consequence of ongoing climate warming, nearly all tidal glaciers in Arctic are retreating; hence, the seascape of glacial fjords is changing in many aspects. We took the example of Hornsund, the well-studied Svalbard fjord, with over 30 years of almost continuous observations of marine system. Recent data were collected during summer oceanogr...

Meiofaunal biomass, despite its ecological importance, is rarely assessed in marine ecological studies due to time-consuming and costly indirect procedures or inaccurate direct methods. Here, we present a semi-automated image analysis method for obtaining the widths and lengths of photographed nematodes that employs the Leica LAS Image Analysis mod...

This study explores the abundance, diversity and assemblage structure of epifauna on the shells used by two hermit crab species (Pagurus bernhardus and P. pubescens) in the Arctic (Svalbard and Northern Norway) and investigates the biotic and physical drivers of such patterns. Contrary to our expectations, we found that location (which reflects the...

Thirty-two species of echinoderms from epibenthic sledges, dredges, scuba diving, and other samples (in total: 467 samples and c. 20 000 specimens) from fjords and coastal waters off Spitsbergen were analysed between 1996 and 2014. The most numerous group of echinoderms in the coastal waters off Spitsbergen is brittle stars (78% of the total indivi...

Time-series studies of arctic marine ecosystems are rare. This is not surprising since polar regions are largely only accessible by means of expensive modern infrastructure and instrumentation. In 1999, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz-Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) established the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) observatory...

The current understanding of Arctic ecosystems is deeply rooted in the classical view of a bottom-up controlled system with strong physical forcing and seasonality in primary-production regimes. Consequently, the Arctic polar night is commonly disregarded as a time of year when biological activities are reduced to a minimum due to a reduced food su...

This study presents the first report on bacterial communities in the sediments of eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows in the shallow southern Baltic Sea (Puck Bay). Total bacterial cell numbers (TBNs) and bacteria biomass (BBM) assessed with the use of epifluorescence microscope and Norland's formula were compared between bare and vegetated sediments...

Three species of dexaminid amphipods are currently known from the Arctic, but none of them have been hitherto recorded in the west Spitsbergen fjords (Svalbard). In 2010, four individuals of dexaminid Guernea (Prinassus) nordenskioldi were sampled for the first time in the mouth of Isfjorden, a large fjord system located at 78°N. The species was or...

Hermit crabs are important components of Arctic benthic systems, yet baseline data on their densities and distribution patterns in this rapidly changing region are still scarce. Here we compile results of numerous research expeditions to Svalbard, the Barents Sea and northern Norway that were carried out from 1979 to 2011 by the Institute of Oceano...

Celem pracy był opis zmienności przestrzennej i sezonowej zbiorowisk makrofauny w rejonie ujścia Wisły, a także ocena wpływu dostawy materiału niesionego przez Wisłę na własności tych zbiorowisk. Wisła jest najdłuższą rzeką w Polsce i drugą co do wielkości rzeką spływającą do Bałtyku, a jej zlewnia zajmuje ponad połowę Polski. Rzeka uchodzi do Zato...