Beaches, bugs and plastic in Arctic Canada

by Huw Griffiths, Cath Waller and Steve Roberts

The Arctic is undergoing dramatic changes, including unprecedented decline in sea ice and rising temperatures. These changes are likely to have significant impacts on all Arctic ecosystems, but beaches are often the places we see these changes first. In addition to these pressures, emerging threats such as plastic and other pollutants are impacting marine life all around the world from the poles to the equator.

Our team includes researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (Huw & Steve) and the University of Hull (Cath) (you can meet the team here). Our INTERACT funded project is called “Biodiversity and Plastics in Arctic Intertidal and Nearshore Terrestrial Systems” or “B-PAINTS”. INTERACT is an Arctic network of 68 terrestrial field bases in northern Europe, US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland as well as stations in northern alpine areas. INTERACT specifically seeks to build capacity for research and monitoring all over the Arctic, offering access to numerous research stations through the Transnational Access Program.

 

For our current project we headed off to Nunavut (ᓄᓇᕗᑦ) in Arctic Canada to spend two weeks working at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) in Cambridge Bay/Iqaluktuuttiaq/ᐃᖃᓗᒃᑑᑦᑎᐊᖅ. Situated 180 miles (220 km) north of the Arctic circle, Cambridge Bay has a polar climate and sea ice in the bay for much of the year. Being based in the UK, we faced a two-day, 9,300 km, journey at the start of August 2022 to reach CHARS. Our plan was to survey the intertidal zone (the beaches) and nearby areas for biodiversity (the plants and animals that make the beach their home). We also planned to assess human impacts, including micro (small plastic pieces less than five millimetres long) and macro (larger pieces) plastics.

To do this, we use a combination of visual surveys (images from a drone) and collections of sand and filter feeding animals (clams, crustaceans etc) to check for the presence of plastic particles. This work will add to our information that we have already collected in Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic, Greenland and Iceland, helping us to understand how biodiversity and pollution are changing in the polar regions. We had a busy couple of weeks with 110 sampling events collecting drone images, dust and beach sediments, sea and tap water sampling, and biodiversity observations and collections (see the map below for where we went).

 

 

The waters of Cambridge Bay are frozen for most of the year, making the beaches an inhospitable place for most types of life. Unlike most rocky shores around the world, Cambridge Bay has no intertidal seaweeds and very few species of animals found on the beach. The last published survey from 1961 recorded only a single species of animal from the beaches of Cambridge Bay, the amphipod crustacean Gammarus setosus. We found this species in large numbers and a few examples of another species of amphipod and some mussels. This very low biodiversity is probably a result of the continual scouring of the beach by ice for most of the year, but the deeper waters of the bay are known to support a rich diversity of seafloor life.

 

As well as studying biodiversity, we were looking for microplastic pollution in the air, dust, beach sediments, animals and water. Unfortunately, microplastics are known from all regions of the Earth and Cambridge Bay is no exception. Our preliminary results have found what appear to be plastic fibres and particles everywhere we have looked. We hope to use our samples to build up a picture of the pollution hotspots around the bay.

We used our multispectral drone to survey the beaches from above for biodiversity and larger pieces of plastic. The drone can cover a far larger area than humans during the limited time that the tide is at its lowest point. The drone images highlight the lack of any large plant life in the shallowest waters of the bay compared to the bright red hotspots of the plants on land and seaweeds underwater further offshore.

Our working locations were beautiful, especially the evening fieldwork provided us with some stunning sunsets. The local people were really friendly, and the children very enthusiastic, even helping us spot jellyfish and comb jellies from the dock when plankton sampling between low tides. A real highlight for the team was presenting a talk about Antarctica to a group of children from the Actua summer camp being hosted at CHARS, followed by a long chat about the animals that live around the South Pole and who eats who in the Southern Ocean.

We came to Cambridge Bay looking for microplastics, but one thing that was obvious on the beaches were the macroplastics (bigger pieces of plastic litter). Every beach we looked at had as much, or more, plastic litter than you would find in heavily populated areas of the world. These larger plastics will, if not removed, eventually break down into microplastics and chemical pollutants that can enter the environment and food chain. We are hoping that our results will help to change attitudes and policy in the region, and to encourage recycling and safe disposal of these long-term pollutants.

In the short time we had on our visit we were fortunate enough to meet and be welcomed by many local people and talk with them about their Arctic home and their perceptions of pollution and climate change. We were treated to a traditional fire lighting ceremony from a local elder and throat singing from Kalinda and Victoria during a visit from the Canadian Minister for Northern Affairs, the honourable Dan Vandal. The fabulous Helen and Pam at the Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq / Kitikmeot Heritage Society told us about their experiences of changes in wildlife distribution and the new arrivals such as the moths that weren’t this far north a few years ago.