Survival of terrestrial soil‐dwelling arthropods on and in seawater: implications for trans‐oceanic dispersal

Summary 1.  The ability of six species of high Arctic soil arthropod to survive oceanic transport in or on sea water was tested experimentally. 2.  Five species of Collembola, Hypogastrura tullbergi (Schäffer), Onychiurus groenlandicus (Tullberg), Onychiurus arcticus (Tullberg), Folsomia quadrioculata (Tullberg) and Tetracanthella arctica Schött were exposed on the surface film of seawater in chambers agitated within a shaking water bath. 3.  All five species survived for over 14 days, at the end of which survival among species varied between 27 and 100%. 4.  In a separate experiment the cryptostigmatic mite Camisia anomia Colloff and the ‘wettable’ collembolan T. arctica survived submersion in sea water for longer than 2 weeks. Survival of C. anomia exceeded 75% but that of T. arctica , when submerged, fell to 12%. 5.  Survival times are sufficient to permit ocean current transport from northern Norway to Svalbard in the high Arctic, a distance of around 700 km. The implications of the experiments for long‐distance trans ‐oceanic dispersal of non‐specialized soil arthropods are discussed.