Knowledge of the features of the structure and productivity of the Arctic communities of marine planktonic algae is necessary to identify possible changes in the pelagic ecosystem functioning under the changing climate condition of the Kara Sea. This study shows that the species diversity, abundance of phytoplankton, and production activity of algae are at a maximum at the beginning of summer during a seasonal ice melting peri...

Compositional similarity generally decreases with increasing geographic distance between sites (distance decay of similarity, DDS). Two non‐exclusive mechanisms have been proposed to explain this pattern: increasing differences in environmental conditions and pure spatial effects of dispersal limitation. On regional and global scales, environmental selection is considered the major factor for microbial assemblages, whereas pur...

Aim This study aims to evaluate the role of various factors in structuring biogeographical distribution of small‐sized organisms. More specifically, we analysed the distribution of three groups of marine benthic organisms differing in body size, both unicellular and metazoans, to assess the relevance of geographical and environmental factors on their taxonomic composition. Location Global. Taxon Heterotrophic flagellates, Cili...

Aim Relative diversity metrics (RDMs), such as local : global or regional : global diversity ratios and percentage of endemics, are widely applied in biodiversity studies. This approach, however, is flawed because the real global diversity of many taxa is still largely unknown, especially for rare species. This potential inconsistency of RDMs has not been proved (or disproved) thus far. Here, I use simulation models to explore...