More than one hundred taxa of single-cell pelagic algae have been identified around the archipelago, the most common being "Thalassiosira antarctica" and "Chaetoceros decipiens". The bloom takes place between May and August. Of the roughly fifty species of zooplankton, calanoids dominate, with "Calanus glacialis" and "Calanus hyperboreus" constituting the greater portion of the biomass. On the sea bottom there are 34 species of macroalgae and at least 500 species of macrofauna. Most common are crustaceans such as amphipods and shrimps, polychaetes and echinoderms, such as sea bristles. The ice scouring causes there to be little life in the littoral zone, but the sublittoral zone () is dominated by laminaria, most commonly "Laminaria sachcharina", and red algae, such as "Phycodrys rubens".