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Extended recruitment failure and subsequent success of the coronate medusa Periphylla periphylla in a Norwegian fjord provided a unique opportunity to estimate age-related biological traits by combining individual size distribution in the population over time with previously published data. The average growth rate decreased exponentially with age, from 0.55% day−1 during the first year to <0.17% day−1 after four years. This species becomes mature at the third year, when females carry approximately 10 mature oocytes. At an age of 9 years, the medusa is on average 12 cm in diameter and carries over 1000 mature oocytes. Recruitment of juveniles, 0.5–1 cm diameter, was estimated to be 15 female−1 year−1 in Halsafjord; mortality from egg to juvenile 1 cm in diameter, using oocyte turnover times (T) of 1–12 months, was 93% (T = 12 months) to 99.95% (T = 1 month). Eggs and juveniles younger than 10 months are not capable of vertical migration and remain deeper than the sill depth where regular fjord circulation occurs. Therefore they are only vulnerable to deep-water renewal, and a fjord population of P. periphylla is estimated to gradually decrease recruitment with increased frequency of deep-water renewal and reach zero recruitment with renewal intervals of 10 months or less. It is hypothesized that differences in regular and intermittent deep-water renewal is the main factor causing variability in size (age) distribution between fjord populations.

Ongoing climate change is projected to extend the warmer and therefore the biologically productive season, reducing ice cover, ice thickness, and quality, potentially influencing biodiversity, and productivity of aquatic ecosystems. Changed influence of dissolved organic matter is one factor that can contribute to those effects. Winter ecology is little studied, and the advancement of knowledge would benefit from controlled experiments on the mesocosm scale. To investigate the capability of mesocosm experimental infrastructures for winter ecological research, a 5-months long experiment during the sub-arctic winter in 2021/2022 was conducted in Umeå, Sweden. Simultaneously, the performance of an outdoor and indoor mesocosm facility with ice-forming capability at the same site was compared. Boundary conditions for hydrographic, chemical, and biological variables were determined.The facilities were operated successfully over winter and treatments caused similar effects in both systems, despite some differences presented below. Salinity and temperature were similar between the facilities throughout the experiment. Ice was markedly thicker on the sea compared to in the indoor facility. Further the ice inside the outdoor mesocosms, was significantly thicker than on the surrounding natural sea. Light irradiance indoors correlated with the outdoor facility, but light irradiance indoors could not reach the outside values in the lightest months of the experiment (after mid-March). Both dissolved organic carbon and dissolved nitrogen was higher in the outdoor facility, possibly caused by a pump effect increasing organic carbon and nitrogen concentrations. Most other nutrient levels remained similar. Chlorophyll-a was comparable between the facilities, while plankton respiration was twice the rate outdoors compared to indoors. Two substances were used to simulate browning, HuminFeed® (a commercially available leonardite) and soil extract, causing similar treatment effects in both facilities for 75% of measured variables. HuminFeed caused a marked increase in CDOM (coloured dissolved organic matter) and nitrite during spring. Treatment with soil extract resulted in slightly higher phosphorus concentrations.The indoor mesocosm facility was thus comparable to the outdoor facility regarding experimental effects, despite facility differences observed. The organic matter sources HuminFeed and soil extract differ in some experimental effects that need to be considered. These results should provide basic knowledge for improving experimental design in future winter mesocosm studies.

Decomposing jellyfishes at 9ᵒC showed exponential loss in wet and dry weight, particulate (POC) and dissolved (DOC) organic carbon and particulate organic nitrogen (PON), with turnover times of 3.5–4.2 d. The amount (%) carbon and nitrogen of carcasses, decreased linearly over time, but the C/N atomic ratio remained stable at 7. The daily decline of POC and PON, as a % of starting C and N, both showed a negative relationship with medusa weight, but with a stable POC/PON atomic ratio at 9.1. Five morphological groups of bacteria that co-occurred with the medusa, all exhibited exponential growth, with an average daily biomass doubling rate between 2.8 and 4.9. Over a 3-d period the biomass ratio between coccoids and spirills increased by a factor of 76. Oxygen consumption in the surrounding water was on average 0.34 ± 0.10 mg l−1 h−1 and slightly increasing over time. Assuming the oxygen consumption being a function of bacterial respiration, the bacterial growth efficiency increased exponentially from <3% during the first 25 h to 16% after 55 h. Incorporating all of these results, the potential impact of decomposing jellyfishes on environmental oxygen concentration could be simulated, with the biomass of decomposing medusae and water-mixing volume as input variables. Such simulations would be useful to forecast environmental hypoxia.

Comparisons over 6 years of three Norwegian fjord populations of the deep-water scyphomedusa Periphylla periphylla are presented. A minor part of the population in Lurefjord is migrating to the surface during night, which benefits mating encounters by increasing abundance per unit volume and decreasing the distance between individuals. Simulations using a typical water-column density profile and Stoke's law show that fertilized eggs released in the surface quickly reach a depth where light is insufficient for visual predators. Consequently, the distribution of the smallest juveniles was strongly skewed towards higher depths in all three fjords studied. Mature females in Sognefjord were 4-5 times less abundant than in Lurefjord and Halsafjord, but due to a larger size and strong exponential relationship between size and number of mature oocytes, the potential recruitment rate as recruits m(-2) year(-1) was not much different from the other two fjords. Nevertheless, the observed number of small (<1 cm) juveniles was 18-31 times higher in Sognefjord than in the other two fjords, and it is assumed that the deeper habitat (up to 1300 m) compared to the other fjords (up to 440 and 530 m) is a superior habitat for the early development of P. periphylla.

Salinity is an important biodiversity regulating factor in the Baltic Sea, forming a physiological dispersal barrier for species. The salinity in the Baltic Sea has been predicted to decline due to increased precipitation and fewer saline water inflows from the ocean. This causes stress to species already living on the edge of their tolerances and can alter species compositions and interactions in ecosystems. Calanoid copepod resting eggs, originating from a known egg bank on the seabed in the western Gulf of Finland, were incubated in the laboratory. We monitored the hatching of the calanoid copepods Acartia sp. and Eurytemora affinis, as well as the survival to maturity of hatched Eurytemora affinis nauplii in salinities ranging from 0 to 25. Further, we also investigated salinity-related effects on body size and egg production. Based on the results of our generalized linear mixed model, peak hatching occurred within the salinity range 5-20 (6.3 at the study site). Body size was not affected by salinity and most eggs were produced in salinities of 5, 7.5 and 15. The results suggest that E. affinis lives on the edge of an optimal salinity and that a decline of salinity could affect the fitness of the local populations of the species.

The Sognefjord is a geologically unique, long, and deep glacial valley, stretching more than 200km inland with a maximum depth of 1300m. Surprisingly little is known about the seafloor environment and bottom communities of this, in a global perspective, spectacularly long and deep fjord. Megafaunal species richness, seabed substrates, and biotopes of the fjord were studied in 2000, 2001, 2014, and 2015 using underwater video as part of a joint project between the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research with funds from the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre. Clear gradients in species richness and composition were found related to distance into the fjord, depth, and landscape features (fjord sides, basin plain, shallower side fjords). Detrended Correspondence Analyses of results from detailed video annotations indicated the presence of six biotopes with characteristic species composition and environment. Earlier fjord studies have shown that deep-sea species often occur shallower in fjord basins than in adjacent offshore areas. Furthermore, the isolation of fjord basins behind one or more sills can lead to mass occurrence of species that by chance have been introduced and been able to establish dense populations. The limited contact between fjord basins in relation to the open ocean and between side fjords makes the extremely large and branched Sognefjord particularly interesting for studies of the effects of connectivity on bottom communities. Similarities to communities outside the fjord are discussed.

Since phytoplankton production is usually estimated from static incubations (fixed depths or light levels), a mesocosm study was performed to evaluate the significance of mixing depth, mixing intensity and load of humus of natural phytoplankton assemblages. Vertically rotated (dynamic) incubations usually gave higher results than static incubations in humus-rich water. Mixing intensity was of significant importance in one of 2years tested, but strong interaction effects with humus complicated the explanation. Differences in primary production between dynamic incubations did not fully reflect the received PAR dose, and increased humus and increased mixing depth increased the photo-assimilation efficiency. Different single-depth incubations did not provide a shortcut method to measure water-column primary production with high accuracy. Results diverged from theoretical estimates based on recent combined photo-biological and physical environmental models. The large variability in responses to mixing is supposed to reflect species-specific adaptations and pre-history regarding quantity (photons) and quality (spectral distribution) of the optical environment in an assemblage of different species. The proportional abundance of each species with its specific characters will therefore strongly influence bulk primary production. Due to such variable responses, clear guidelines for a best practice in primary production measurements cannot be given, based on the present results.

Phytoplankton productivity standardized to chlorophyll a and photon flux (mg C mg chl. a(-1) mol photons(-1)) of natural communities from northern Bothnian Sea under dynamic (vertically rotating) incubations and different optical conditions was studied during four mesocosm experiments between April 2013 and April 2016. The standardized productivity showed a positive exponential relationship with calculated optical depth (P<0.001 in all four cases) although a considerably weaker one for one of the series where the community was pre-adapted to the same optical condition as used in the measurements. This series also showed a lower regression slope than the three non-adapted series, which in turn showed identical regression slopes, thus indicating a similar response on the standardized productivity to short-term changes in average ambient photon flux and mixing depth. These results indicate that phytoplankton communities in environments with episodic inflow and mixing of humus-rich water can partly compensate for the reduced photon flux by increased production efficiency.

Mesocosms are important research tools in aquatic ecology because they close the gap between laboratory studies at the individual or lower organization level and field studies at the population and ecosystem level. However, most mesocosm studies regarding the pelagic environment do not consider the effects of physical factors like water-column stratification, turbulence and mixing. Neglecting such factors might bias the results compared to the natural system. Using a unique indoor mesocosm facility, we present results on how different water-column stratifications can be made and how they act as barriers for exchange between water layers. Turbulent mixing, simulated by vertically rotating incubation vessels, is shown to be of high importance for primary production, generating up to nine times higher production in humus-rich water than incubation vessels at fixed depths. Convective stirring is shown to be an attractive method for generating different turbulence conditions, and different temperature settings can be used to get turnover times from 84 h or more down to 17 min for a 5-m water parcel. We also demonstrate how an anoxic bottom layer can be achieved by stimulating heterotrophic bacteria through addition of bioavailable organic carbon.

Climate change projections indicate increased precipitation in northern Europe, leading to increased inflow of allochthonous organic matter to aquatic systems. The food web responses are poorly known, and may differ depending on the trophic structure. We performed an experimental mesocosm study where effects of labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC) on two different pelagic food webs were investigated, one having zooplankton as highest trophic level and the other with planktivorous fish as top consumer. In both food webs, DOC caused higher bacterial production and lower food web efficiency, i.e., energy transfer efficiency from the base to the top of the food web. However, the top-level response to DOC addition differed in the zooplankton and the fish systems. The zooplankton production increased due to efficient channeling of energy via both the bacteria land the phytoplankton pathway, while the fish production decreased due to channeling of energy mainly via the longer and less efficient bacterial pathway. We conclude that the added DOC either acted as a subsidy by increasing the production of the top trophic level (mesozooplankton), or as a sink causing decreased top consumer production (planktivorous fish).