New research in Bering Sea highlights systemic ecosystem changes with sea ice shifts – NOAA

(NOAA) Nancy Kachel and Carol Ladd deploy a bongo net to sample for zooplankton at the ice edge in the Bering Sea aboard the Research Vessel Thomas G. Thompson. Kachel is with the NOAA Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington. Ladd is with the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

Bering Sea marine mammals, birds, and fish are shifting where they eat, bear their young, and make their homes in response to changes in sea ice extent and duration. The details of these findings are now published in a special edition of the journal Deep Sea Research II, as a partnership between the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC), the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO), and several other academic and federal partners.