US-CAN-Transboundary_BOEMproject_Beaufort Sea_Epibenthos_2012_2013_2014

Sampling occurred along 11 transects perpendicular to shore at target sampling depths of 20 m, 50 m, 100 m, 200 m, 350 m, 500 m, 750 m, and 1000 m in the Alaskan and western Canadian Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Epibenthic communities were sampled in the summers of 2012, 2013 and 2014, with some locations resampled in subsequent years and others only sampled once, using a 3-m plumb-staff beam trawl with 7 mm mesh and 4 mm codend liner deployed for associated fish surveys. Taxa were field-identified onboard by the data providers and their research group members, and identifications of select vouchers preserved in formaldehyde-seawater solution were later confirmed or corrected by taxonomic experts (those are listed in the below listed publications). This work was partially conducted under BOEM Cooperative Agreement No. M12AC00011 US−Canada Transboundary Fish and Lower Trophic Communities,’ US Department of the Interior, BOEM, Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Region, Anchorage, Alaska, as
part of the BOEM Environmental Studies Program.