Pollination is an ecosystem function of global importance. Yet, who visits the flower of specific plants, how the composition of these visitors varies in space and time and how such variation translates into pollination services are hard to establish. The use of DNA barcodes allows us to address ecological patterns involving thousands of taxa that are difficult to identify. To clarify the regional variation in the visitor community of a widespread flower resource, we compared the composition of the arthropod community visiting species in the genus Dryas (mountain avens, family Rosaceae), throughout Arctic and high‐alpine areas. At each of 15 sites, we sampled Dryas visitors with 100 sticky flower mimics and identified specimens to Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) using a partial sequence of the mitochondrial COI gene. As a measure of ecosystem functioning, we quantified variation in the seed set of Dryas. To test for an association between phylogenetic and functional diversity, we characterized the structure of local visitor communities with both taxonomic and phylogenetic descriptors. In total, we detected 1,360 different BINs, dominated by Diptera and Hymenoptera. The richness of visitors at each site appeared to be driven by local temperature and precipitation. Phylogeographic structure seemed reflective of geological history and mirrored trans‐Arctic patterns detected in plants. Seed set success varied widely among sites, with little variation attributable to pollinator species richness. This pattern suggests idiosyncratic associations, with function dominated by few and potentially different taxa at each site. Taken together, our findings illustrate the role of post‐glacial history in the assembly of flower‐visitor communities in the Arctic and offer insights for understanding how diversity translates into ecosystem functioning.

The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) is an important legacy of the International Polar Year (IPY). APECS continues to foster engagement in education, outreach and communication (EOC) activities relating to the polar regions and provide training for early career researchers (ECRs). We highlight opportunities for training, leadership and skills development, such as the annual Polar Weeks and Antarctica Day celebrations. Participation and engagement in EOC activities actively contributes to career development by enabling ECRs to develop valuable soft skills such as networking, communication and interdisciplinary knowledge. A pilot survey on EOC engagement highlighted that those who organise events also gain leadership skills such as team management. We discuss several factors contributing to the success of APECS in training the next generation of polar leaders. These include the geographical rather than discipline-specific focus of the organisation, utilisation of online resources, including social media, and the strong links with partner organisations. These examples demonstrate how the EOC legacy of IPY has continued due to APECS’ targeted efforts to create EOC opportunities and provide skills and leadership training for ECRs.

Throughout history, humans have experienced epidemics. The balance of living in nature encircled by microorganisms is delicate. More than 70% of today’s emerging infections are zoonotic, i.e., those in which microorganisms transmitted from animals infect humans. Species are on the move at speeds never previously recorded, among ongoing climate change which is especially rapid at high latitudes. This calls for intensified international surveillance of Northern infectious diseases. Russia holds the largest area of thawing permafrost among Northern nations, a process which threatens to rapidly disrupt the balance of nature. In this paper, we provide details regarding Russian health infrastructure in order to take the first steps toward a collaborative international survey of Northern infections and international harmonization of the procured data.

Recent years have shown that international science dialogue exists at the edge of turbulence and is disturbed by different geopolitical events. The notion of science diplomacy has taken the critical discourse to different levels of actors. Such a discourse exposes the epistemological ambivalence and methodological imbalance of both science and diplomacy in this phenomenon. Current geopolitical conditions have revealed new edges of science diplomacy instruments that spread from “soft” to “hard” practices. Different levels of dialogue and cooperation have shown different examples of resilience and adaptability (or the opposite) to the external turbulence. The phenomenon of regionalisation in science diplomacy is facing criticism from the science community while the current geopolitical situation has dramatically influenced the Arctic science dialogue, as well as governance practices. This commentary discusses particular examples of existing Arctic science diplomacy practices in current geopolitical conditions which are reflected in the Arctic theoretical and practical discourse.

Because geoscientific research often occurs via community-instigated bursts of activity with multi-investigator collaborations variously labelled as e.g., years (The International Polar Year IPY), experiments (World Ocean Circulation Experiment WOCE), programs (International Ocean Discovery Program), missions (CRYOSAT spacecraft), or decades (The International Decade of Ocean Exploration IDOE), successful attainment of research goals generally requires skilful scientific project management. In addition to the usual challenges of matching scientific ambitions to limited resources, on-going coordination and specifically project management, planning and implementation of polar science projects often involve many uncertainties caused by, for example, unpredictable weather or ocean and sea ice conditions, large-scale logistical juggling; and often these collaborations are spatially distributed and take place virtually. Large amounts of funding are needed to procure the considerable infrastructure and technical equipment required for polar expeditions; permissions to enter certain regions must be requested; and potential risks for expedition members as well as technical issues in extreme environments need to be considered. All these aspects are challenging for polar science projects, which therefore need a well thought-through program including a realistic alternative “plan B” and possibly also a “plan C” and “plan D”. The four most challenging overarching themes in polar science project management have been identified: international cooperation, interdisciplinarity, infrastructure, and community management. In this paper, we address ongoing challenges and opportunities in polar science project management based on a survey among 199 project and community managers and an additional of 85 project team members active in the field of polar sciences. Case studies and survey results are discussed with the conclusive goal to provide recommendations on how to fully reach the potential of polar sciences project and community management.