Flora and Fauna Changes in a Thawing Arctic Ocean

[wili]

I couldn't figure out which thread to put this in so I started this one. But it could be a place to keep track of all the shifts in biological life that are and will be going on in the Arctic Ocean as it warms and becomes more ice free.

Whales Moving Into Thawed Arctic Ocean


http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/whales-moving-into-thawed-arctic-ocean-140226.htm

Microphones submerged in the waters of the Bering Strait recorded an increasing number of whale calls from 2009 to 2012, including some from whales that normally live further south. The whales may have expanded north as the Arctic warmed and the animals’ populations recovered from hunting.

The increase in whale numbers coincided with more ship traffic in the region. More shipping could lead to whales being injured or killed in collisions and interfere with whale communications.

[Shared Humanity]

Actually this should be a separate topic but is there a way we can change the topic title? I believe a topic which tracks flora and fauna migrations would be useful to understand the near term impacts across regions. The topic title should capture this broader subject so we can pull a lot of information to one site.

[wili]

How's that?

[Shared Humanity]

How's that?

Perfect.

[ritter]

I can't help but think the Arctic ecosystem will be a giant train wreck in the short-term (if it's not already). Will these new whale species be considered an invasive species to the whales already there? Will the food web, under assault by changes from increasing temps/decreasing ice, support the new species? Where will the existing species migrate to when the waters get too warm? Train wreck. 

[wili]

First time in 2 mn years, melting Arctic ice threatens mass-scale species contamination

 

  The world is entering the most significant period of invasive species contamination in two million years as Arctic ice melts away and new shipping routes threaten to open the floodgates between foreign eco systems, causing irreversible damage.

    This affects a number of species and has happened before, as biologists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center explain in a recent report. For an example one has only to look at how insects invading trade-rich lands with the aid of humans have ruined local trees. Of all the possible invasive species, insects are the worst. They affect woodland areas, causing massive disruption of eco systems that aren’t ready or even suitable for their presence.

    But the following event is happening on a new scale, as trading ships carry produce (and unwittingly, animals) with them along two huge shipping routes. The thoughts are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

    The basic premise here is that invasive marine and insect species can now spread north, unfettered and unabated in a process that accelerated in 2009, as enough ice melted away for two new shipping routes to open up: one is the Northwest Passage through Canada, the other, the Northern Sea Route, which is a 3000-mile stretch reaching out from Russia and Norway and connecting the Barents and Bering seas.

http://rt.com/news/162264-melting-arctic-ice-species/

(Thanks to Graeme at POForums for the link.)