(^) It has been decades since this excellent project was completed, and many of the
questions that it raised are still unanswered. That is very common in such research.
Funds to support the study were available when there was interest in possible offshore
oil production and thus the need for background to write environmental impact
statements. By the time the study was complete, that interest had waned, because of
fear of the impact from massive drifting ice on drilling platforms. A study with similar
techniques and goals was carried out by Feder et al. (1994) in the region just to the
west. It provides a further arctic example of community analysis that we recommend
to readers specifically interested. Dunton et al. (2006) have contributed a useful food-
web analysis (a different form of community evaluation) for the Beaufort Sea benthos.
Interest in the arctic shelf benthos has recently accelerated. Because nearshore ice is
melting earlier and freezing later, substantial changes can be expected (Carmack &
Wassmann 2006).
Benthos, More Community Ordinations
(^) Benthic studies provide many examples of community analysis. A common
application is to discern the range of biological impact from sewage or pollutant
outfalls in coastal areas. Similar techniques are applied to plankton, fisheries catches,
forest trees, and insects found in wheat fields. The strength of the approach is that
organisms tell us what constitutes a suitable habitat for them, and which habitats are
differentiable by them, without requiring much knowledge of their actual biology. The
limit of the method is that it only generates hypotheses about which aspects of a
habitat are important to the organisms characteristic of it, not tests of those