The Pacific Arctic Ocean is experiencing profound changes in the atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean that may alter the marine ecosystem. For example, the St. Lawrence Island Polynya, one of the largest polynyas in the Northern Hemisphere, is widely known as an ecological hotspot in the Arctic Ocean, where highly productive benthic communities provide abundant prey for benthic-feeding mammals and seabirds.  However, observations have suggested interesting spatial patterns (e.g., the west-east asymmetry in sediment chlorophyll content and benthic macrofaunal biomass), along with a general declining trend in the percent biomass of medium-sized nuculanid bivalves since the 1980s. To better understand the coupled physical and biological processes that drive the temporal variability and spatial heterogeneity, we synthesized 24 years (1998-2021) of satellite-retrieved sea ice and chlorophyll-a concentrations, as well as historical in situ observations. Despite substantial inter-annual variability in sea ice retreat and pelagic bloom peak timing, high synchronicity between the two events exists over the western side of the polynya but not over the eastern side, which may explain the observed west-east asymmetry in sediment chlorophyll content and benthic macrofaunal biomass. Higher ice-bloom synchronicity in the west may allow more biogenic production to be exported directly to the benthos and could serve as an important mechanism for biological hotspot formation. Analyzing the coupled physical-biological processes will facilitate predicting the persistence or relocation of biological hotspots in the rapidly changing Pacific Arctic Ocean.