Background Little is known about the prevalence of asthma, allergic rhinitis, eczema and allergies among Canadian Inuit children, especially those living in the arctic and subarctic areas. Methods A cross-sectional study among Grade 1 students attending schools in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, was conducted during the 2015/2016 school year. We used the International Study of Allergy and As...

Near-surface waters ranging from the Pacific subarctic (58°N) to the Southern Ocean (66°S) contain the neurotoxin domoic acid (DA), associated with the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia. Of the 35 stations sampled, including ones from historic iron fertilization experiments (SOFeX, IronEx II), we found Pseudo-nitzschia at 34 stations and DA measurable at 14 of the 26 stations analyzed for DA. Toxin range...

BACKGROUND The people living in Arctic and Subarctic environments have adapted to cold temperatures, short growing seasons, and low precipitation, but their traditional ways are now changing due to increased contact with Western society. The rapid alteration of circumpolar cultures has led to generational changes in diet from traditional foods to the processed groceries common in modern stores....

Three independent modeling methods—a nutrient-phytoplankton–zooplankton (NPZ) model (NEMURO), a food web model (Ecopath/Ecosim), and a bioenergetics model for pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha)—were linked to examine the relationship between seasonal zooplankton dynamics and annual food web productive potential for Pacific salmon feeding and growing in the Alaskan subarctic gyre ecosystem. Th...

A long-term record of Asian dust storms showed seven high-occurrence-frequency centers in China. The intrusion of Asian dust into the downwind seas, including the China seas, the Sea of Japan, the subarctic North Pacific, the North Pacific subtropical gyre, and the western and eastern Equatorial Pacific, has been shown to add nutrients to ocean ecosystems and enhance their biological activities...

Many hours of sunlight in the midnight sun period suggest that significant amounts of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) may be released from arctic ecosystems during night-time. However, the emissions from these ecosystems are rarely studied and limited to point measurements during daytime. We measured BVOC emissions during 24-hour periods in the field using a push-pull chamber techni...

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship among children's diet quality, weight status and food environment in subarctic Canada. DESIGN In the cross-sectional study, children's BMI was calculated, diet quality was assessed using three 24 h dietary recalls and children were asked about their home food environment and source of meals. SETTING Two Aboriginal Cree communities in northern Québec. ...

Climate change is affecting high-altitude and high-latitude communities in significant ways. In the short growing season of subarctic habitats, it is essential that the timing and duration of phenological phases match favorable environmental conditions. We explored the time of the first appearance of flowers (first flowering day, FFD) and flowering duration across subarctic species composing di...

A well-pronounced halocline is a key feature of today’s subarctic North Pacific. There is indirect paleoevidences from the last glacial termination as well as from the early and middle Pliocene that this halocline has not always been there. To study the effects of North Pacific salinity on global climate, ocean circulation and the marine carbon cycle, we perform idealized experiments using an E...

Climate change is proceeding rapidly at high northern latitudes and may have a variety of direct and indirect effects on aquatic food webs. One predicted effect is the potential shift in phytoplankton community structure towards increased cyanobacterial abundance. Given that cyanobacteria are known to be a nutritionally poor food source, we hypothesized that such a shift would reduce the effici...