10 J. Brown et al. 



The invertebrate fauna of the Arctic Slope is poorly known. 

 However, the recently built road from interior Alaska to the Prudhoe 

 Bay oilfield has provided access to collecting sites along a latitudinal 

 transect, allowing study of the distribution of invertebrates. Soil mites 

 (Acari) and springtails (Collembola) are among the most diverse of the 

 invertebrates; 127 mite species and 115 Collembola species were recorded 

 along the transect (Table 1-2). Since these data come from a limited 

 number of samples, they do not represent the total fauna of the Arctic 

 Slope. The number of species recorded from the three physiographic pro- 

 vinces is similar. The most Collembola species are found in the Foothills 

 and Coastal Plain, while the Acari are most diverse in the Brooks Range 

 and the Foothills. Overlap between provinces is high. Recently, MacLean 

 et al. (1978) showed that the mite and Collembola species from a coastal 

 tundra site in northern Chukotka, in northeast Asia, overlapped consid- 

 erably with the fauna of the Arctic Slope. Fifty-nine of ninety mite spe- 

 cies and 50 of 79 Collembola species found in the Chukotkan tundra 

 have also been found in Alaska. 



In contrast to the distribution of soil microarthropods, many other 

 invertebrate groups increase in number of species from the Coastal Plain 

 to the Brooks Range. For example, at Barrow there are only small 

 numbers of a few species of herbivorous insects, including only a single 

 species of the plant-sucking Homoptera, which is an important group 

 worldwide. However, the number of species of herbivorous insects in- 

 creases almost four-fold from the Coastal Plain to the Foothills along the 

 road transect, then declines markedly from the Foothills to the Brooks 

 Range. The distribution parallels that of the vascular plants on which the 

 insects feed. However, the distribution of host plants is clearly only one 

 factor in herbivore distribution, since these plant species are commonly 

 found farther north than their characteristic herbivores. 



BARROW RESEARCH AREA 

 Location 



The Barrow peninsula is situated at the northern extremity of the 

 Coastal Plain (71°18 'N, 156°40 'W). It is a triangular-shaped land mass 

 bounded by the Chukchi Sea on the west and the Beaufort Sea and Elson 

 Lagoon on the east (Figure 1-3). The earliest known site of human habi- 

 tation, Birnirk, was submerged by an encroaching sea some 1200 to 1500 

 years ago (Ford 1959). The present village of Barrow (population 2700) is 

 the largest Eskimo settlement in the State of Alaska. 



Since 1920 the National Weather Service has operated a first-order 

 weather station at Barrow. About 6 km north of the village there are 



