Recommendations

Knowledge gaps: Filling gaps in knowledge helps us better understand key elements and functions of the ecosystem that can help explain change and understand the system:

• Encourage the monitoring of relevant physical parameters alongside some FECs that are particularly sensitive to their effects, including sea ice biota and plankton.
• Expand monitoring programs to include important taxonomic groups and key ecosystem functions. These gaps are likely due to logistical challenges or lack of expertise in specific fields.
• Expand monitoring programs to include those utilizing both TK and science, involvement of Indigenous organizations and build capacity to provide a co-production of knowledge platform.

Marine mammals

• Implement existing international monitoring plans such as those for ringed seals and polar bear, with adaptive management principles to address the eleven FEC marine mammal species.
• Expand marine mammal monitoring efforts to include parameters on health, passive acoustics, habitat changes, and telemetry tracking studies.
• Obtain more knowledge about population sizes, densities, and distributions of marine mammal populations in order to understand the relationships between sea ice loss and climate change and to manage Arctic marine mammal populations in an appropriate manner.
• Involve indigenous and local peoples in the design and implementation of monitoring programs so that scientific knowledge and TLK holders are working collaboratively.
• Pursue a multidisciplinary and multi-knowledge approach and a high degree of collaboration across borders and between researchers, local communities and Arctic governments to better understand complex spatial-temporal shifts in drivers, ecological changes and animal health.

Sea ice biota

• Establish an annual monitoring programme from land fast sea ice at selected Arctic field stations in Canada (Resolute, Cambridge Bay), Greenland (Kobbefjord, Disko Bay, Zackenberg), Norway (Kongsfjorden, Billefjorden, Van Mijenfjorden), and the U.S. (Barrow).
• Establish a standardized monitoring protocol, including sample collection, preservation, microscopic and genetic analyses, taxonomic harmonization, and data sharing.
• Establish opportunistic monitoring from drifting sea ice during cruises of opportunity.
• Collect macrofauna samples in drifting sea ice via ship-based activities, scuba diving, electrical suction pumps, under-ice trawl nets, and remotely operated vehicles.

Coordination: Better coordination allows for increased value for investment in monitoring programs, better opportunity to compare results, and more ability to draw meaningful conclusions from data:

• Strategically locate Arctic research stations and monitoring vessels, and use all collected specimens, to allow the collection and analysis of as many CBMP FECs as possible.
• Ensure research stations operate all year to better study FECs year round.
• Combine national monitoring with collaborative approaches that allow for sufficient integration and standardization to conduct syntheses across the circumpolar region.
• Standardize how data are collected, managed and made available. This is a key component in ensuring circumpolar Arctic comparability and should be an important consideration in the implementation of monitoring plans.
• Encourage states to increase the implementation of existing internationally coordinated monitoring plans.
• Connect monitoring initiatives and report across scales so that results are meaningful for local, sub-national, national, regional and global decision-makers.
• Continue to increase coordination between CBMP and other regional and global monitoring initiatives e.g., the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEOBON), International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (IPBES).

Benthos

• Develop a time- and cost-effective, long-term and standardized monitoring of megabenthic communities in all Arctic regions using regular national groundfish assessment surveys. Expanding monitoring on micro-, meio- and macrobenthic groups is encouraged.
• Gather information from research programs in regions without regular groundfish-shellfish trawl surveys. These are usually short-term and do not guarantee spatial consistency in sampling, but provide valuable information on benthic biodiversity and community patterns.
• Generate information on benthos from little-known regions, such as the Arctic Basin and Arctic Archipelago, on cryptic or difficult taxonomic groups, and on biological “hotspots”.
• Systematic studies of macrobenthos (grab investigations) and megabenthos (trawl bycatch of regular fishery surveys including both annual studies, as in the Atlantic Arctic, and periodic studies as in the Northern Bering and Chukchi Seas) are the most suitable and practical approach to long-term monitoring.
• Standardize methodology, including taxonomic identification, across regions to assist in regional comparisons.
• Recognize and support the use of TLK as an invaluable resource for understanding of changes in Arctic benthic communities.

Traditional and Local Knowledge (TLK): Utilizing Traditional and Local Knowledge and involvement of TK holders allows for increased understanding of relationships and changes underway in Arctic ecosystems, current and historical trends, and serves to build valuable partnerships on the ground in Arctic communities.

• Use Traditional and Local Knowledge within the design and implementation of monitoring plans. The Traditional and Local Knowledge of people living along and off the Arctic Ocean is an invaluable resource for understanding changes in Arctic marine ecosystems and its inclusion should be supported by national governments.
• Increase engagement and partnerships with local residents and easy to access technology in monitoring programs. Indigenous communities are important ‘first responders’ to catastrophic events. More importantly, their knowledge systems provide a wealth of knowledge that should be involved in the analysis of collected data for increased understanding of current trends and filling historical gaps.
• There is a need for TLK on a range of FECs and to engage networks of TLK holders and Indigenous organisations.
• Use both TLK and scientific information on the analysis of harvest levels and status when evaluating overall population health and managing hunts.

Arthropods : Arthropods are highly diverse and under-studied. They serve as important connections between trophic levels and several are important indicators of changing environments. The START reports on six FECs: pollinators, decomposers, herbivores, prey for vertebrates, blood-feeding insects, and predators and parasitoids. Only a few localized trends are provided due to high variability and lack of monitoring.

• Implement long-term sampling programs at strategic sites with rigorous standardized trapping protocols.
• Collect baseline data, including structured inventories, using standardized protocols for FECs and key attributes.
• Work with Indigenous Knowledge holders, Local Knowledge holders, and/or citizen science to identify regionally important species to monitor, and key locations for long-term monitoring activities.
• Focus monitoring efforts on taxa that: (a) are well-studied with existing data; (b) respond to, or are vulnerable to, change; and/or (c) have possible range shifts. • Monitor dominant habitats at a variety of sites at both small and large geographic scales.
• Monitor relevant microhabitat environmental parameters, in addition to climatological variables, and connect to biological trends at relevant scale.
• Focus on critical FEC attributes, including ecosystem processes such as pollination, decomposition, and herbivory.
• Continue specimen sorting, identification and reporting and construct a complete trait database.
• Complete molecular sequence libraries, increase international collaboration to collate, analyze, archive, and make data accessible.

Methods : Increased attention to methodology facilitates more precise and comparable results, standardized data collection, and ability to link regional monitoring to circumpolar efforts.

• Standardize how data is collected, managed, and reported, including field and sampling protocols, data collection methods, terminology, database harmonization and management, tools for data archiving and specimen libraries, including identification and curation.
• Create a harmonized, accessible, and long-term taxonomic framework for Arctic monitoring.
• Complete baseline studies and structured inventories to improve circumpolar data across FECs.
• Promote multi-species studies and long-term time series data.

Mammals: The START reports on half of mammal FECs including large herbivores (caribou/reindeer, muskoxen), small herbivores (lemming), and medium-sized predators (Arctic fox). Data deficiencies prohibited reporting on medium-sized herbivores, and large and small predators.

• Develop synchronized protocols that include more attributes and reduce geographical knowledge gaps.
• Establish or expand international monitoring networks for medium-sized herbivores and large and small carnivores.
• Emphasize spatial structure and diversity in monitoring efforts due to the northward advance of southern competitors and vegetation changes.
• For large herbivore, small herbivore, and medium-sized predator FECs:
• Agree on priorities and harmonize data collection across sites and programs;
• Share and standardize protocols, in cooperation with relevant partners including Indigenous Peoples and organizations, to include abundance, demographics, spatial structure, health, phenology and, for harvested species, harvest rates; and
• Ensure monitoring programs employ existing methods with new harmonized methods to allow data comparisons.
• Monitor health as an attribute and develop standardized health assessment protocols due to the anticipated impact of climate change on distribution and prevalence of disease.
• Monitor abiotic factors and drivers of change, across greater spatial distributions to assess the cumulative impacts of climate and other anthropogenic change on populations across their ranges.
• Conduct research on the vulnerabilities of populations to climate change and human impacts, and on genetic diversity and spatial structure of FECs.
• Increase collaboration using interdisciplinary and multi-knowledge approaches to share site- and population-specific information. This can improve monitoring and lead to better models to assess the vulnerabilities and resilience of specific populations.
• Address challenges in assessing abundance of FECs across the Arctic, including:
• reliability of abundance estimates, such as lack of precision and accuracy;
• changing baselines, such as changes in species distribution, sampling methodology, and areas monitored; and
• differences in frequency and spatial extent of monitoring.

Local Knowledge and Citizen Science: Local Knowledge exists on a spectrum from long-term, place-based experiential knowledge held by local residents, including harvesters, to knowledge of more recent residents. As such, monitoring efforts to work with Local Knowledge must interact with a wide range of diverse knowledge holders.

• Dedicate more time to collaboration with Local Knowledge holders in monitoring design, analysis and interpretation.
• Encourage and support citizen science platforms that engage Arctic residents, as well as visitors. Platforms should reflect strong scientific goals, have transparent methods for evaluating data quality, build communities of observers, engage a strong volunteer base, and devote consistent efforts to communicating results.
• Identify and collaborate across existing platforms to increase awareness and participation in citizen science and consider new approaches to address knowledge gaps.
• Invest in digital infrastructure as a prerequisite for fully accessible platforms to inform biodiversity monitoring.