Spatial Distribution and Growth Patterns of a Common Bivalve Mollusk (Macoma calcarea) in Svalbard Fjords in Relation to Environmental Factors

Ongoing warming in the Arctic has led to significant sea-ice loss and alterations in primary production, affecting all components of the marine food web. The considerable spatial variability of near-bottom environments around the Svalbard Archipelago renders the local fjords promising sites for revealing responses of benthic organisms to different environmental conditions. We investigated spatial variations in abundance, biomass, and growth parameters of the common bivalve <i>Macoma calcarea</i> in waters off western Spitsbergen and identified two distinct groups of this species: one composed mainly of cold-water stations from Storfjorden (Group I) and the other comprising warmer-water stations from Grønfjorden and Coles Bay (Group II). Within these groups, the mean abundance, biomass, production, and mortality accounted for 0.2 and 429 ind. m^-2, 20 and 179 g m^-2, 18.5 and 314 g m^-2 year^-1, and 0.22 and 0.10 year^-1 respectively. The size-frequency and age-frequency distributions were biased towards smaller and younger specimens in Group I, while Group II displayed more even distributions. The maximum ages were 11 and 21 years, respectively. The mollusks from cold water were significantly smaller than their same-aged counterparts from warmer water. Two groups of <i>Macoma</i> were identified: slow-growing individuals with a rate of 1.4 mm and fast-growing individuals with a growth rate of 1.8 mm. Most population parameters were higher than those observed in the Pechora, Kara, and Greenland Seas. Redundancy analysis indicated water temperature as the main driving factor of abundance and biomass, while the latter was also influenced by the presence of pebbles. Our findings provide new insights into the growth patterns and spatial distribution of <i>Macoma</i> at high latitudes and confirm that this species can serve as a reliable indicator of environmental conditions.