polar bears

ICES Journal of Marine Science

Gaston A. J., Smith, P. A., and Provencher, J. F. 2012. Discontinuous change in ice cover in Hudson Bay in the 1990s and some consequences for marine birds and their prey. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: . Arctic ice cover has changed strikingly since the mid-1990s, with the minimum ice extent in the northern hemisphere diminishing by 8.5% per decade since 1981. In the Canadian Arctic, ice cover in June and November showed a step change in the mid-1990s, with little reduction before that. There was a similar step change in northern Hudson Bay. A long-term dataset on marine birds at Coats Island, Nunavut, revealed that many changes in seabird biology also exhibited an abrupt change at, or soon after, the change in ice conditions. This applied to their diet that switched in the 1990s from one dominated by Arctic cod, Boreogadus saida, to one dominated by capelin, Mallotus villosus. Evidence from the proportion of Arctic cod in adult diets suggested that the length of the open-water season may be a good predictor of the switch between Arctic cod and capelin. Other changes, in nestling growth and population trend, may relate to the same ecosystem changes that led to the switch in diet. Abrupt changes, as in the breeding biology of murres at Coats Island, would seem to be characteristic of ecosystem alterations driven by climate change.