Recommendations

Monitoring Methods

• Harmonize sampling approaches among countries and select appropriate sampling methods andequipment to balance between maintaining consistency and comparability with historical data andalignment with common methods used across the Arctic.
• Use a regionalized approach based on ecoregions to guide the spatial distribution of sample stations and, ultimately, provide better assessments.
• Ensure spatial coverage of sampled ecoregions is sufficient to address the overarching monitoring questions of the CBMP across the Arctic and provide sufficient replication.
• Maintain time series at key locations, and fill gaps where monitoring data are sparse.
• Develop supplementary monitoring methods that provide better standardized estimates of biodiversity to maximize the likelihood of detecting new and/or invasive species.
• Make use of recent advances in emerging technologies, including environmental DNA (eDNA) methods and remote sensing approaches.
• Standardize data storage practices and provide access through a common data source like GBIF.

Citizen Science

• Engage local communities in monitoring activities through citizen science and incorporate local knowledge as an integral part of future circumpolar monitoring and observational networks.
• Interact with local communities to enhance outreach to the public (youth in particular) and develop common observational tools.
• Provide material for training and educational purposes for local residents at all age levels.

Traditional Knowledge (TK)

• Engage with Indigenous communities to work towards identifying and integrating their TK into efforts to assess Arctic freshwater biodiversity, including change over time.
• Incorporate TK as an integral part of circumpolar monitoring and observational networks.

Monitoring Design and Assessment

• Establish a circumpolar monitoring network based on a hub-and-spoke model in remote areas.
• Increase focus on the response of biotic communities to environmental changes by designing monitoring to address impact hypotheses developed in the CBMP-Freshwater Plan.
• Ensure that the CBMP Freshwater group continues to serve as the focal point for the development and implementation of Arctic, freshwater biodiversity monitoring.
• Provide resources to maintain and build the CBMP freshwater database for future assessments in order to maximize the benefits of this database.
• Efforts should be made to document and preserve data from short-term research projects, research expeditions, industrial, university and government programs and to make these data accessible to the public.
• Status assessments of Arctic lakes and rivers must explore the close association of biodiversity with spatial patterns of physical and chemical quality of aquatic habitats that can drive biological systems.
• CBMP-Freshwater database allows the identification of predominant sampling approaches across the Arctic and should be used to inform the development of harmonized monitoring approaches.
• Where valuable long-term data series exist, these should be given high priority in monitoring programs, to continue to provide data for the detection of long-term trends and changes in biodiversity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).