Biodiversity
Did You Know...
- The Barents Sea holds the largest stocks of cod and herring in the world.
- More than three thousand polar bears live in the ecoregion.
- There are 20 million seabirds in the ecoregion during summer.
- Europe’s most important salmon rivers run into the Barents Sea.
- Twelve species of whales swim around in Barents waters.
- The world’s largest deep-water coral reef is found in the ecoregion.
- In the spring, the zone around the ice-edge is among the most productive places on earth in terms of primary production.
Its shallow structure, the inflow of warm Atlantic water, and the nutrient-rich up-welling means that the Barents Sea supports rich benthic communities, enormous concentrations of plankton, huge concentrations of migratory seabirds, large fish stocks and a diverse community of sea mammals.
The Barents Sea still enjoys a high degree of naturalness and represents one of Europe's last relatively undisturbed marine ecosystems. The ocean is only between 200 and 300 meters deep. From the south, the Norwegian coastal current and the Atlantic current carry warm water into the Barents Sea, while cold arctic water flows from the north.
Nowhere else on earth do warm ocean currents from the south reach as far north as in the Barents Sea. Warm and cold water masses meet at the Polar Front, which stretches, as a natural and dynamic biogeographic limit, eastward in a changing pattern from south of Svalbard.
For centuries, the natural riches of the Barents Sea attracted explorers, fishermen and whalers. Today, the commercial fisheries are the main source of jobs and income for coastal communities, while aquaculture and tourism are becoming increasingly important.
