Megafauna distribution of biomass (g/15 min trawling) in the Barents Sea in 2007, 2011 and 2015. The green circles show the distribution of the snow crab as it spreads from east to west, and the blue triangles show the invasion of king crab along the coast of the southern Barents Sea. Data from Institute of Marine Research, Norway and the Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, Murmansk, Russia. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 95 - Figure 3.3.2 The annual joint Norwegian–Russian Ecosystem Survey provides from more than 400 stations and during extensive cruise tracks covering more or less the whole Barents Sea in August– September. The sampling is based on a regular grid spanning about 1.5 millionkm2 with fixed positions of stations which make it possible to measure changes in spatial distribution over time. The trawl is a Campelen 1800 bottom trawl rigged with rock-hopper groundgear and towed on double Warps. The mesh size is 80 mm (stretched) in the front and 16–22 mmin the cod end, allowing the capture and retention of smaller fish and the largest benthos from the seabed (benthic megafauna). The horizontal opening was 11.7 m, and the vertical opening 4–5 m (Teigsmark and Øynes, 1982). The trawl configuration and bottom contact was monitored remotely by SCANMAR trawl sensors. The standard distance between trawl stations was 35 nautical miles (65 km), except north and west of Svalbard where a stratified sampling was adapted to the steep continental shelve. The standard procedure was to tow 15 min after the trawl had made contact with the bottom, but the actual tow duration ranged between 5 min and 1 h and data were subsequently standardized to 15 min trawl time. Towing speed was 3 knots, equivalent to a towing distance of 0.75 nautical miles (1.4 km) during a 15 min tow. The trawl catches were recorded using the same procedures on the Russian and the Norwegian Research vessels to ensure comparability across Barents Sea regions. The benthic megafauna was separated from the fish and shrimp catch, washed, and sorted to lowest possible taxonomic level, in most cases to species, on-Board the vessel. Species identification was standardized between the researcher teams by annually exchanging the benthic expert’s among the vessels and taxon names were fixed each year according toWORMSwhen possible.This resulted in an Electronic identification manual and photo-compendium as a tool to standardize taxon identifications, in addition to various sources of identification literature. Difficult taxa were photographed and, in some cases, brought back as preserved voucher specimens for further identification. Wet-weight biomass was recorded with electronic scales in the ship laboratories for each taxon.The biomass determination included all fragments.

Biotopes are unique combinations of species and their environment. This dataset shows a predicted distribution of marine biotopes in the Barents Sea, based on modeling of species composition, seabed sediments, and oceanographic data.

Estimated consumption of polar cod by Atlantic cod in the Barents Sea (yellow line) and biomass of the Atlantic cod stock in the Barents Sea (red line) (ICES 2016). The blue line is the biomass of the Barents Sea polar cod (Prozorkevich 2016). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/marine-fishes" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 116 - Box figure 3.4.1

Variation of average annual trawling activity (in hours) and macrobenthic biomass (g m-2), (a) and relationship of biomass with a four-year lag (mean value of time of the turnover in biomass value) to trawling activity, (b) along the Kola section of the Barents Sea during 1920-1997 (Denisenko 2001, 2013). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 97 - Figure 3.3.5

Macrofauna distribution of biomass (g wet fixed weight m-2) in the Barents Sea over three time periods: 1924-32 (Figure A), 1968-70 (Figure B) and 2003 (Figure C, constructed from original archive data, except for area south of 72° N where digitized megafaunal-data taken from Anisimova et al. (2010) was used. Adapted from Denisenko (2013). Blue boxes delineate the areas within which the zoobenthos biomass values were compared. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 96- Figure 3.3.3

Commercial fishery impact on zoobenthos of the Barents Sea. Figure A) Intensity and duration of fishery efforts in standard commercial fishery areas in the Barents Sea. The darker the area the longer the fishery has been in operation. Figure B) Level of decline in macrobenthic biomass between 1926-1932 and 1968-1970 calculated as 1-b1968/b1930. The largest biomass decreases correspond to the darker colour, whereas lighter colour refers to no change (Denisenko 2013). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/benthos" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 97 - Figure 3.3.4

Polar cod in the Barents Sea. Acoustic estimate of polar cod 1-year-old and older (green) and pelagic trawl index of age 0-group abundance (yellow). Source: Joint IMR-PINRO ecosystem survey (Prozorkevich 2016). STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - <a href="https://arcticbiodiversity.is/findings/marine-fishes" target="_blank">Chapter 3</a> - Page 116 - Figure 3.4.3

This dataset is included the following parameters: water temperature, salinity,air temperature,visibility (code). Research vessel:"Mikhail Somov".

The mooring was deployed on 15 September 2017 from Norwegian Research Vessel Lance at 80.6°N and 7.26°E (depth of 730 m) in the Yermak Pass over the Yermak Plateau north of Svalbard. It comprised 3 instruments: an upward-looking RDI 75kHz, a Long Ranger Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) at 340 m with 16 m vertical resolution (25 bins of 16 m each) and a 2-hour sampling time; a Seabird SBE37 measuring temperature, salinity and pressure at 348 m with 10-minute sampling time; and an Aquadopp current meter at 645 m with a 2-hour sampling time. The mooring was retrieved on the 19 July 2020 by Norwegian Icebreaker K.V. Svalbard. The present dataset features: The ADCP 50-hour high pass filtered velocities and  the Aquadopp 50-hour high pass filtered velocities. Important Note: This submission has been initially submitted to SEA scieNtific Open data Edition (SEANOE) publication service and received the recorded DOI. The metadata elements have been further processed (refined) in EMODnet Ingestion Service in order to conform with the Data Submission Service specifications.

As part of the STeP project (STorfjorden Polynya multidisciplinary study), two moorings, M1 and M2, were deployed in Storfjorden (Svalbard) on July 14, 2016 from the French R/V L’Atalante and were recovered one year later, on September 28, 2017, from the French R/V Pourquoi-Pas?. The two moorings, deployed a few hundred meters apart at 78°N and 20°E at a depth of 100m, documented the formation of dense Brine-enriched Shelf Water (BSW).  The moorings included both physical oceanography (PO) and biogeochemistry sensors. The present dataset is composed of PO data only: the 3 components of the currents, backscatter, salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen. PO sensors on M1, spanning the whole water column, included 6 Seabird SBE37 microcat (CTD),  15 RBR solo (T), and 1 RBR duet (TD) for hydrography, while currents were monitored with a RDI WH 300kHz upward looking ADCP and 1 Nortek Aquadopp underneath. PO sensors on the shorter M2 mooring included 1 Seabird SBE63 (CTD-O2), 1 RBR solo (T) and 1 RBR duo (TD). Data have been calibrated and validated and the different steps of this processing are discussed in the technical report provided with the dataset. Two netcdf4 files are provided for M1: one for hydrography (STEP2016_M1_hydrography.nc), the other one (STEP2016_M1_current.nc)  for currents and backscatter. Only one netcdf4 files (STEP2016_M2_hydrography.nc) is provided for the shorter M2. Temperature and salinity data from SBE sensors have been interpolated on a common time grid with a 20’ time step. Likewise temperature data from RBR are provided on a 30” time grid. A merged SBE-RBR dataset has also been built for increased vertical resolution, providing temperature every 20’. ADCP data are provided on a 100’ time grid. The user is referred to the technical report provided with the dataset for further information on the different fields. Important Note: This submission has been initially submitted to SEA scieNtific Open data Edition (SEANOE) publication service and received the recorded DOI. The metadata elements have been further processed (refined) in EMODnet Ingestion Service in order to conform with the Data Submission Service specifications.