June 2025

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Oceanography | Vol. 38, No. 2

56

Biodiversity and Underwater Cultural Heritage

The Svalbard fjords provide natural laboratories for exploring the

effects of global warming. Fjords on the west coast receive large

quantities of heat energy, organisms, and particles that are trans­

ported northward by the West Spitsbergen Current (e.g., Berge

et al., 2005). Fjords on the northern part of the archipelago are

more influenced by Arctic water masses. Arguably, Rijpfjorden is

among the most extensively studied High Arctic marine ecosys­

tems (e.g., Jordà-Molina, 2023), thought to host a more endemic

Arctic fauna without the influence of boreal species. Finding

Xyloredo nooi both in Rijpfjorden and Smeerenburg shows that

significant knowledge gaps remain regarding biodiversity and

distribution of species that need to be filled before we can ana­

lyze and understand how future warming of the Arctic may influ­

ence and alter biodiversity, ecosystem composition, and eventu­

ally also ecosystem services in the marine Arctic.

Moreover, and due to the fact that investigations of the few

wrecks discovered in cold-water temperatures have shown no

presence of wood-boring mollusks, there has been an assump­

tion that such organisms do not thrive in the High Arctic (Stewart

et al., 1995). With over 1,000 historic shipwrecks estimated to

be in the waters between Greenland and the Svalbard archipel­

ago (Guijarro Garcia et al., 2006), the area could potentially be

a treasure trove of information not only on Svalbard history but

also on 400 years of Europe’s richest maritime history. The pres­

ence of wood-boring bivalves may pose a hitherto unrecognized

threat to this underwater record of centuries of extractive activity

along the Arctic frontier. The newly discovered wreck of Figaro,

a wooden whaling ship that sank in 1908, did not show signif­

icant signs of damage from wood-boring organisms (Mogstad

et al., 2020). Figaro was discovered in Isfjorden on the west coast

of Svalbard ~100 nm south of Smeerenburg (Figure 1; for details

regarding Figaro, see Mogstad et al., 2020). The fact that Figaro

presently is the only investigated historical wreck in the Svalbard

archipelago underscores the profound knowledge gaps related to

the natural and cultural history of the seabed in these areas.

The rate of Arctic warming is to two to four times the global

average (Gerland et al., 2023), which will impact the biological

diversity as we know it today. A likely effect will be to extend

the distribution of boreal species northward. Following this, the

entry of new and more wood-boring organisms to the Arctic

will pose a threat to cultural heritage, as observed in this story.

However, the story and future perspectives may be entirely dif­

ferent for the deep-sea, cold-water species Xyloredo nooi. The

combination of less sea ice and a much-reduced timber indus­

try in Siberia is likely to result in reduced substrate for these spe­

cies. To some extent, this may be partly counteracted by faster

flow of the TPD (Figure 1), reducing the potential time it takes

for a piece of wood to be transported across the Arctic Ocean.

Nevertheless, less wood on the seabed will then reduce the avail­

ability of steppingstones for wood-boring organisms. On the

other hand, more frequent extreme weather events as a result of

global climate change could increase wood input to the ocean.

All of these factors combined, and in the light of the present

knowledge, it is difficult to predict the status and the vulnerabil­

ity of these deep-sea organisms.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The report of wood-boring mollusks in the High Arctic is indic­

ative of a hitherto unknown, but potentially ecologically signif­

icant, element of the Arctic marine biota. Collected in the rela­

tively well-studied fjords of Svalbard, the discovery also points

toward a major gap in knowledge regarding biodiversity and eco­

system composition. Such knowledge gaps are particularly rele­

vant in light of the Norwegian government’s recent decision to

allow exploration and mapping of the seafloor in preparation for

future development of deep-sea mining (Nature, 2024).

Climate change is fundamentally transforming the Arctic.

Half of the summer sea ice has disappeared since the 1980s, and

the rest is projected to be gone within the coming decades (Kim

et al., 2023). The warming extends from the deep ocean to the

upper atmosphere, impacting ocean circulation, weather pat­

terns, ecosystems, and human presence in the region (Gerland

et al., 2023; Nanni et al., 2024). We need to close knowledge gaps

concerning the Arctic biota to understand the present compo­

sition of Arctic benthic organisms and their ecosystems and

to understand and manage changes to these areas. As demon­

strated in this study, the natural and cultural histories of the

Arctic are deeply intertwined, necessitating interdisciplinary

approaches to uncover connections and insights across domains

that might otherwise remain obscure. Climate change coincid­

ing with increased interest from commercial and geopolitical

actors in the region further enhance this need.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

The supplementary materials are available online at https://doi.org/10.5670/

oceanog.2025.311.

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