Search results for "Arctica islandica"

2021

Bulk stable nitrogen isotope values of the carbonate-bound organic matrix in bivalve shells (δ15NCBOM) are increasingly used to assess past food web dynamics, track anthropogenic nitrogen pollution and reconstruct hydrographic changes. However, it remains unresolved if the δ15NCBOM values are also affected by directed ontogenetic trends which can bias ecological and environmental interpretations. This very aspect is tested here with modern and fossil specimens of the long-lived ocean quahog, Arctica islandica, collected from different sites and water depths in the NE Atlantic Ocean. As demonstrated, δ15NCBOM values from the long chronologies show a general decrease through lifetime by −0.00…

Arctica islandica (Bivalvia): A unique paleoenvironmental archive of the northern North Atlantic Ocean

2013

Abstract High-resolution environmental proxy data from the extratropical North Atlantic prior to the instrumental era are of critical importance to decipher processes and mechanisms of global change. In this regard, shells of the extremely long-lived bivalve mollusc, Arctica islandica ( Linnaeus, 1767 ), have gained particular attention during the last decade because they serve as reliable, subseasonally resolved multi-proxy archives of environmental variability in that very region. With a lifespan of more than 500 years, A. islandica is the longest-lived solitary animal. Its shell grows periodically throughout life and contains distinct annual and daily growth increments. These growth patt…

History of bioavailable lead and iron in the Greater North Sea and Iceland during the last millennium – A bivalve sclerochronological reconstruction

2014

We present the first annually resolved record of biologically available Pb and Fe in the Greater North Sea and Iceland during 1040-2004 AD based on shells of the long-lived marine bivalve Arctica islandica. The iron content in pre-industrial shells from the North Sea largely remained below the detection limit. Only since 1830, shell Fe levels rose gradually reflecting the combined effect of increased terrestrial runoff of iron-bearing sediments and eutrophication. Although the lead gasoline peak of the 20th century was well recorded by the shells, bivalves that lived during the medieval heyday of metallurgy showed four-fold higher shell Pb levels than modern specimens. Presumably, pre-indus…

Oxygen isotopes from limpet shells: Implications for palaeothermometry and seasonal shellfish foraging studies in the Mediterranean

2017

Limpet shells are common components of many archaeological sites in the Mediterranean. To test whether δ18O values from archaeological Patella caerulea shells can serve as a reliable palaeothermometer for the Mediterranean and a reliable archive of season of collection information, we collected live P. caerulea from eight Mediterranean locations in Croatia, Israel, Libya, Malta, Tunisia, and Turkey. Shell growth patterns were studied in section, and samples for oxygen isotope analysis were milled from the shells and used to calculate sea surface temperature (SST). As with other species of limpet, SST reconstructed from P. caerulea δ18O values were lower than expected from observational reco…

Reproducibility of trace element time-series (Na/Ca, Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca, Sr/Ca, and Ba/Ca) within and between specimens of the bivalve Arctica islandica – …

2017

Abstract Trace element time-series in bivalve mollusk shells and other (biogenic) materials can potentially serve as environmental proxies. Yet, the applicability of element-to-calcium ratios is often challenging, because non-environmental factors such as vital effects distort or mask environmental signals. If a trace element time-series is driven by an environmental factor, it should be reproducible within and between coeval specimens of the same species. In the present study, we tested whether time-series of trace element-to-calcium ratios can be reproduced within and between coeval specimens of the bivalve Arctica islandica and thus whether an external signal is encoded in the temporal v…

Oceanographic control on shell growth of Arctica islandica (Bivalvia) in surface waters of Northeast Iceland — Implications for paleoclimate reconstr…

2015

Absolutely dated, annually resolved sea surface temperature records from middle to higher latitudes covering long time intervals are crucial to better understand the climate system. Such data can potentially be obtained from variations in shell growth of long-lived bivalves such as Arctica islandica. This study presents the first statistically robust 178-yr long composite chronology (covering 1835–2012) based on sixteen live-collected and subfossil specimens of A. islandica from unpolluted, shallow waters of Northeast Iceland. Between 1875 and 1996, up to 43% of the variation in annual shell growth was explained by SST during February to September. Faster growth occurred when temperatures w…

Gulf of Maine shells reveal changes in seawater temperature seasonality during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age

2011

article i nfo In this study, we use subannually resolved oxygen isotope values of fossil (dead-collected) and modern (live- caught) bivalve shells (Arctica islandica L.) from the northwestern Atlantic (Gulf of Maine, USA) to reconstruct past seasonal changes in seawater temperature. Our results indicate decreased seasonal temperature amplitude of about 1.6 °C (or ∼21%) during Medieval times (ca. AD 1033-1062) compared to shells from the early Little Ice Age (ca. AD 1321-1391) and during the late 19th century (AD 1864-1886). Additionally, seasonal oxygen isotope data suggest that summers were cooler and winters were warmer in the Gulf of Maine during the 11th century compared to summers and …

Effect of organic matrices on the determination of the trace element chemistry (Mg, Sr, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca) of aragonitic bivalve shells (<i>Arctica …

2010

The element chemistry of biogenic carbonates can provide important data on past environments. However, the Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca ratios as well as the Mg and Sr concentrations of biological carbonates, especially aragonitic bivalves often depart from apparent thermodynamic equilibrium. When measured in situ by means of LA-ICP-MS, the Mg concentration is often substantially enriched (two- to threefold) near the organic-rich, annual growth lines. To test the hypothesis that some organic components exert a major influence on the skeletal metal content, the element chemistry of different shell components (insoluble organic matrix, IOM; dissolved CaCO3 and soluble organics, SOM) of Arctica islandica w…

Accurate increment identification and the spatial extent of the common signal in fiveArctica islandicachronologies from the Fladen Ground, northern N…

2009

[1] The creation of networks of shell-based chronologies which can provide regionally extensive high-resolution proxies for the marine environment depends on the spatial extent of the common environmental signal preserved in the shell banding and on the reliability of the dating model. Here Arctica islandica chronologies from five neighboring sites in the North Sea are compared, and the strength of the common environmental signal across distances up to 80 km is analyzed using statistical techniques derived from dendrochronology. The signal is found to be coherent across these distances. In a linked study, chronologies based on one of the same sites but constructed by two different research …

Ba/Ca ratios in shells of Arctica islandica —Potential environmental proxy and crossdating tool

2017

Abstract Ba/Ca shell time-series of marine bivalves typically show flat background levels which are interrupted by erratic sharp peaks. Evidence from the literature indicates that background Ba/Ca shell ratios broadly reflect salinity conditions. However, the causes for the Ba/Ca shell peaks are still controversial and widely debated although many researchers link these changes to primary productivity, freshwater input or spawning events. The most striking feature is that the Ba/Ca shell peaks are highly synchronous in contemporaneous specimens from the same population. For the first time, we studied Ba/Ca shell in mature and ontogenetically old (up to 251 year-old) specimens of the long-li…