Despite their importance, our understanding of Arctic ecological processes is based predominantly on studies conducted during spring and summer, so that many seasonal aspects (e.g. life-cycling, foraging, overwintering) and their sensitivity to global change are still poorly understood. To better understand the responses of Arctic coastal ecosystems and their key species to warming, we will combine weekly assessments of oceanographic and biological core parameters with dedicated season-specific experiments on temperature responses of key species from multiple trophic levels (phytoplankton, seaweeds, echinoderms and fish). This will be used to develop an ecosystem model projecting potential winners and losers of climate change as well as warming-driven tipping points at different times of the year.
