PRIVARC

In polar regions submitted to climate change, the processes structuring the benthic compartment act at a regional scale and involve the ‘match-mismatch’ hypothesis between dynamics of primary production and meroplankton.

The objective of the PRIVARC project is to use the huge plasticity of peri-métamorphorphic stages of marine bivalves, whose larvae can delay their metamorphosis in the absence of positive stimulus, to quantify anthropogenic impacts on the renewal of invertebrates’ populations and by cascade on the functioning of Arctic benthic ecosystems.

The proposed approach involves the analysis of delays of metamorphosis by shell measurements (lengths of prodissonconchs I / II) and of the physiological status of recruits of dominant species from a high arctic Greenland fjord by the fatty acid trophic marker methods.

Project coordinator:
Frédéric Olivier, MNHN professor, BOREA Research Unit

Prodissoconque II d'une Coquille de bivalve de Hiatella arctica récoltée au mois de mai 2017.