Glacier retreat is an eminent consequence of exacerbating climate change. In the Svalbard archipelago, most of the glaciers are discharging fresh and turbid waters directly to the sea, substantially impacting the coastal Arctic marine ecosystems. This study attempted to characterise the environmental conditions (hydrography, turbidity, marine aggregates) in the glacial-influenced waters and relate them to the abundance and species composition of protists and zooplankton. The study was conducted in the summer of 2016 in two Svalbard fjords (Wijdefjorden and Rijpfjorden) as well as in coastal waters close to glacier terminations on two islands (Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya). Well-recognised gradients in seawater salinity, turbidity, and particle aggregates that spread from glacier fronts towards open waters were not directly associated with the corresponding horizontal gradients in plankton communities. However, the studied environmental parameters explained the high overall variability in protists and zooplankton abundance (70 and 62% of explained variation, respectively). Different vertical distribution patterns and composition of plankton and marine aggregates were observed between fjords compared to open sea island locations suggesting different origin and transport of pelagic organisms and aggregate suspensions among study locations. The results do not support the hypothesis of synchronised horizontal change in environmental and biological components, which indicates that the interaction between glacier meltwaters and plankton dynamics is a derivative of complex interactions driven by several physical and ecological processes that occur at different spatiotemporal scales. Nevertheless, this investigation provides new data pertaining to particle and plankton concentrations and structure in coastal waters near glaciers, which is essential for further understanding of the future coastal Arctic ecosystems functioning under rapid glacier retreat caused by climate change.

冰川退缩是加剧气候变化的显着结果。在斯瓦尔巴群岛，大多数冰川将淡水和浑浊的水直接排入海洋，严重影响了北极沿海海洋生态系统。这项研究试图表征受冰川影响的水域的环境条件（水文，浊度，海洋聚集体），并将其与原生生物和浮游动物的丰度和物种组成相关联。该研究于2016年夏季在两个斯瓦尔巴群岛的峡湾（Wijdefjorden和Rijpfjorden）以及在两个岛屿（Nordaustlandet和Edgeøya）靠近冰川终结点的沿海水域中进行。公认的海水盐度，浊度，从冰川前沿向开放水域扩散的颗粒聚集体与浮游生物群落中相应的水平梯度没有直接关系。然而，研究的环境参数解释了原生生物和浮游动物丰度较高的总体变异性（分别为所解释变异的70％和62％）。与远洋岛屿位置相比，峡湾之间观察到了不同的垂直分布模式和浮游生物与海洋聚集体的组成，这表明研究地点之间中上层生物体和聚集体悬浮液的来源和运输不同。结果不支持关于环境和生物成分水平同步变化的假设，这表明冰川融水与浮游生物动力学之间的相互作用是由在不同时空尺度上发生的几种物理和生态过程驱动的复杂相互作用的衍生。尽管如此，这项调查提供了有关冰川附近沿海水域中颗粒物和浮游生物浓度及结构的新数据，这对于进一步了解未来的北极北极生态系统在气候变化引起的冰川快速退缩下的功能至关重要。