Meiofauna as a valuable bioindicator of climate change in the polar regions

Establishing robust estimates of polar marine biodiversity is important for interpreting future changes in the Arctic; however, despite a recent increase scientific expeditions, this region remains relatively underexplored. Particularly overlooked assessments are small species, such as protists, fungi, and many invertebrates that collectively known meiofauna. These species contribute to foundation food webs crucial survival larger economically socially important. The application high-throughput sequencing methodologies has proven effective biomonitoring metazoan but sparingly been applied Arctic. We used metabarcoding approach assess diversity sea ice sediment-associated metazoans from Utqia?vik (Barrow), Alaska. Sea sediment samples were collected six times over eight months (January through August) encompassing three seasons (winter, spring, summer) night ice-out August. Biodiversity was assessed both richness community composition by incorporating incidence data phylogenetic distance. Environmental conditions associated with ice, sediment, water, snow measured tested possible correlations estimates. found high number taxa distributed locally, suggesting can be effectively Arctic programs. In addition, these results show season habitat significant predictors meiofaunal biodiversity, supporting hypotheses meiofauna valuable indicator climate change.