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When facing environmental change and intensified anthropogenic impact on marine ecosystems, extensive knowledge of how these systems are functioning is required in order to manage them properly. However, in high-latitude ecosystems, where climate change is expected to have substantial ecological impact, the ecosystem functions of biological species have received little attention, partly due to the limited biological knowledge of Arctic species. Functional traits address the ecosystem functions of member species, allowing the functionality of communities to be characterised and the degree of functional redundancy to be assessed. Ecosystems with higher functional redundancy are expected to be less affected by species loss, and therefore less sensitive to disturbance. Here we highlight and compare typical functional characteristics of Arctic and boreal fish in the Barents Sea and address the consequences of a community-wide reorganization driven by climate warming on functional redundancy and characterization. Based on trait and fish community composition data, we assessed functional redundancy of the Barents Sea fish community for the period 2004–2012, a period during which this northern region was characterized by rapidly warming water masses and declining sea ice coverage. We identified six functional groups, with distinct spatial distributions, that collectively provide a functional characterization of Barents Sea fish. The functional groups displayed different prevalence in boreal and Arctic water masses. Some functional groups displayed a spatial expansion towards the northeast during the study period, whereas other groups showed a general decline in functional redundancy. Presently, the observed patterns of functional redundancy would seem to provide sufficient scope for buffering against local loss in functional diversity only for the more speciose functional groups. Furthermore, the observed functional reconfiguration may affect future ecosystem functioning in the area. In a period of rapid environmental change, monitoring programs integrating functional traits will help inform management on ecosystem functioning and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective ocean management requires integrated and sustainable ocean observing systems enabling us to map and understand ecosystem properties and the effects of human activities. Autonomous subsurface and surface vehicles, here collectively referred to as "gliders", are part of such ocean observing systems providing high spatiotemporal resolution. In this paper, we present some of the results achieved through the project "Unmanned ocean vehicles, a flexible and cost-efficient offshore monitoring and data management approach—GLIDER". In this project, three autonomous surface and underwater vehicles were deployed along the Lofoten–Vesterålen (LoVe) shelf-slope-oceanic system, in Arctic Norway. The aim of this effort was to test whether gliders equipped with novel sensors could effectively perform ecosystem surveys by recording physical, biogeochemical, and biological data simultaneously. From March to September 2018, a period of high biological activity in the area, the gliders were able to record a set of environmental parameters, including temperature, salinity, and oxygen, map the spatiotemporal distribution of zooplankton, and record cetacean vocalizations and anthropogenic noise. A subset of these parameters was effectively employed in near-real-time data assimilative ocean circulation models, improving their local predictive skills. The results presented here demonstrate that autonomous gliders can be effective long-term, remote, noninvasive ecosystem monitoring and research platforms capable of operating in high-latitude marine ecosystems. Accordingly, these platforms can record high-quality baseline environmental data in areas where extractive activities are planned and provide much-needed information for operational and management purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]