Community structure and species biodiversity in benthic fauna in the deeper Barents Sea

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The community structure of the Barents Sea benthos is studied and species assemblages for the northern, eastern and southern Barents Sea are identified. The biogeography and the diversity of the benthos in the Barents Sea are described in relation to environmental variables. A novel method has been developed to effectively sample a large number of epifauna samples. A juvenile bag attached to a Campelen survey trawl at 125 stations in the Barents Sea. The stations covered the central part of the sea, with a depth range from 164 to 484 m. At 12 selected stations also infaunal samples were collected with the van Veen grab, to investigate the similarity between these sampling modes. In the epibenthic samples 197 taxa were recorded, where most were crustaceans (107 taxa). The species diversity is higher in the grab samples than in the bag samples although species number is only slightly higher in the grab samples. A Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) revealed depth and temperature, which are correlated with longitude and latitude, as significant environmental variables (P=0.002) influencing the faunal distribution. 17 of the taxa were found to adequately represent the variation of the sampled communities, and are suggested as indicator species that can be used in monitoring effects of climate change.