Abstract
Abstract. Recent advances in underwater imaging technology allow for the gathering of invaluable scientific information on seafloor ecosystems, such as direct in situ views of seabed habitats and quantitative data on the composition, diversity, abundance, and distribution of epibenthic fauna. The imaging approach has been extensively used within the research project DynAMo (Dynamics of Antarctic Marine Shelf Ecosystems) at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven (AWI), which aimed to comparatively assess the pace and quality of the dynamics of Southern Ocean benthos. Within this framework, epibenthic spatial distribution patterns have been comparatively investigated in two regions in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean: the shelf areas off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, representing a region with above-average warming of surface waters and sea-ice reduction, and the shelves of the eastern Weddell Sea as an example of a stable high-Antarctic marine environment that is not (yet) affected by climate change. The AWI Ocean Floor Observation System (OFOS) was used to collect seabed imagery during two cruises of the German research vessel Polarstern, ANT-XXIX/3 (PS81) to the Antarctic Peninsula from January to March 2013 and ANT-XXXI/2 (PS96) to the Weddell Sea from December 2015 to February 2016. Here, we report on the image and data collections gathered during these cruises. During PS81, OFOS was successfully deployed at a total of 31 stations at water depths between 29 and 784 m. At most stations, series of 500 to 530 pictures ( > 15 000 in total, each depicting a seabed area of approximately 3.45 m2 or 2.3 × 1.5 m) were taken along transects approximately 3.7 km in length. During PS96, OFOS was used at a total of 13 stations at water depths between 200 and 754 m, yielding series of 110 to 293 photos (2670 in total) along transects 0.9 to 2.6 km in length. All seabed images taken during the two cruises, including metadata, are available from the data publisher PANGAEA via the two persistent identifiers at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.872719 (for PS81) and https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.862097 (for PS96).
Highlights
The research project Dynamics of Antarctic Marine Shelf Ecosystems (DynAMo) at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven (AWI) aimed to comparatively assess the pace and quality of the dynamics in Southern Ocean benthos and endotherms
By applying a comparative field study approach, the geographical focus of DynAMo was on an area with above-average warming of surface waters and sea-ice reduction around the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula (Gutt, 2013; Gutt et al, 2016) and a stable high-Antarctic marine environment that is not affected by climate change in the southeastern Weddell Sea (Schröder, 2016)
According to an often-used pragmatic definition proposed by Gage and Tyler (1991), this seabed community fraction is comprised of all organisms that are large enough to be visible in seabed images and/or to be caught by towed sampling gear
Summary
The research project Dynamics of Antarctic Marine Shelf Ecosystems (DynAMo) at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven (AWI) aimed to comparatively assess the pace and quality of the dynamics in Southern Ocean benthos and endotherms. According to an often-used pragmatic definition proposed by Gage and Tyler (1991), this seabed community fraction is comprised of all organisms that are large enough to be visible in seabed images and/or to be caught by towed sampling gear (i.e., organisms with body sizes larger than approximately 1 cm) They are of ecological significance for Southern Ocean shelf ecosystems (Gutt, 2006), as they affect the small-scale topography of seafloor habitats and the structure of the entire benthic community (Gili et al, 2006). These include (1) assessing the large epibenthos as a whole, (2) carrying out quantitative community and diversity analyses, (3) including environmentally relevant (e.g., CTD data if CTD sensors are integrated in OFOS) and visible seabed parameters (e.g., the amount of gravel and debris and the number of ripple marks) at exactly the same spots from which the biological information originates, (4) allowing for analyses with high spatial resolution (patterns within and between adjacent photographs, e.g., to survey the impact of iceberg scouring), and (5) acquiring information on biological interactions, such as epibiotic life mode
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