Benthic macrofauna community from the Northwestern Barents Sea from seasonal cruises (Q3-August 2019; Q4-December 2019; Q1-March 2021; Q2-May 2021)-The Nansen Legacy project (Arven etter Nansen)

The present dataset contains data on benthic macrofauna community composition (both abundance and biomass (wet weight)) from the northwestern Barents Sea throughout the seasonal cruises of the Nansen Legacy project (AeN). Four seasonal cruises were carried out: Q3-August-2019, Q4-December-2019, Q1-March-2021 and Q2-May-2021. In total seven stations were surveyed: P1 (Altantic, south of Polar Front), P2 (around the Polar Front), P4 (Arctic Shelf), P5 (Arctic Bank), P6 (continental slope), P7 (Nansen Basin) and SICE4 (Nansen Basin). At each station/season sampling events, three box cores (indicated as BC#(1-3)) were retrieved (although not always possible) and were subsampled with 11,7 cm diameter plastic cores. We aimed to have at least five replicate plastic cores per sampling event distributed randomly among the three box core replicates. In column “eventRemarks” it is indicated which replicates were used for the published paper Jordà-Molina et al. 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2023.103150) and which of the replicates were subjected to sediment respiration incubations prior to sieving. Macrofauna was sieved on a 0.5 mm sieve and fixed with formaldehyde 4% with Borax. Organisms were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible. Column names are named according to Darwin Core format terms (https://dwc.tdwg.org/terms/)