Arctic Sea Ice Bacteria and Virus Abundance from 2018 Spring Campaign

Baseline data on bacteria and virus abundance in multi-year and first-year sea ice and surface waters of the Lincoln Sea. The data were collected during the 2018 spring field campaign of the Multidisciplinary Arctic Program (MAP) – Last Ice, providing ecological knowledge for the Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area. It relates microbial counts to bio-physical environmental conditions.

Use Cases

• Analyze bacteria and virus abundance in relation to bio-physical conditions of sea ice and surface water.
• Establish baseline ecological knowledge for the Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area using microbial data from multi-year ice.
• Study the relationship between microbial communities and ice type (multi-year vs. first-year) in the Arctic ecosystem.

Strengths

• Data provides a unique baseline for the poorly characterized Lincoln Sea region within the Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area.
• Collected during a coordinated, cross-disciplinary 2018 spring field campaign integrating physical, biochemical, and ecological components.
• Focuses on the unique multi-year ice ecosystem, a feature becoming rarer in the Arctic Ocean.

Limitations

• Dataset size, row count, and specific column structure are unknown, limiting pre-assessment of analytical scope.
• Data is from a single spring campaign in 2018, providing a snapshot rather than time-series analysis.
• Geographic coverage is limited to the specific ice camp offshore of Canadian Forces Station Alert in the Lincoln Sea.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Field data collected during the 2018 spring ice camp campaign of the Multidisciplinary Arctic Program (MAP) – Last Ice.

Time Range

2018 spring campaign.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026, though the underlying data collection occurred in 2018.

Geography

Lincoln Sea, within the Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area, offshore of Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert, Arctic Ocean.