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Macrobenthos of the Ob Bay and adjacent Kara Sea shelf

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Abstract

The southeastern part of Kara Sea is a highly dynamic area influenced by freshwater masses of Ob and Yenisei rivers. It is possible to estimate the annual changes of bottom communities in such areas by studying the temporal and spatial distribution of benthic organisms. In the previous studies of the same areas, the communities differing essentially in the composition and abundance were described mainly due to the different sampling methods employed and possible temporal changes in the macrobenthos. The aims of this study were to redescribe the benthic communities in the area of the Ob Bay and the adjacent Kara Sea shelf by using trawl and grabs, to compare the results obtained with these gears with each other and to reveal the environmental factors influencing the macrobenthos. Samples were taken along the transect from the northern half of the Ob Bay to the central part of the Kara Sea. Total biodiversity generally increased toward the open shelf regions. The data obtained only partly confirmed the previously recorded trend of gradual substitution of crustacean communities by communities dominated by bivalves and echinoderms. Three community complexes were distinguished in the studied area—the freshwater, the brackish-water and the marine. The contact area of the brackish-water and the marine complexes demonstrated the gradual transition. Salinity, correlated with the temperature, was the most important environmental factor influencing the benthic communities along the Ob Bay. The other factors were the sediment structure and depth.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks are to the director of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, RAS R.I. Nigmatulin for the organization of R/V «Akademik Mstislav Keldysh» cruise and to the director of the Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography «VNIRO» A.N. Makoedov for the organization of the tugboat «OTA-777» cruise. We thank K.V.Minin, G.A. Koluchkina, A.A. Udalov and P.V. Sapozhnikov for their help in the collection of the material. We also thank V.A. Chechko, P.N. Makkaveev, N.A. Belyaev and L.L. Demina for providing the sediment and hydrochemical data. We are especially grateful to N.V. Kucheruk for informative discussions. We express our sincere thanks to P.A. Tyler and I.A. Vedenina whose careful review and corrections greatly improved this paper. The work was partly supported by PFBR Grant 10-04-01683-a and 13-04-01332-a and RSF Grant 14-17-00681.

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  1. P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Pr., 36, Moscow, 117997, Russia

    Andrey A. Vedenin, Sergey V. Galkin & Vladislav V. Kozlovskiy

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  1. Andrey A. Vedenin
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Correspondence to Andrey A. Vedenin.

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Vedenin, A.A., Galkin, S.V. & Kozlovskiy, V.V. Macrobenthos of the Ob Bay and adjacent Kara Sea shelf. Polar Biol 38, 829–844 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1642-3

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