Description: The expedition AL570 with the RV Alkor was carried out within the framework of the interdisciplinary DAM MGF-OSTSEE Project “Potential effects of closure for bottom fishing in the marine protected areas (MPAs) of the western Baltic Sea – baseline observations” funded by the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Within MGF-OSTSEE a consortium of scientists from various institutions investigates how benthic ecosystems in Natura 2000 areas within the German exclusive economic zone develop after the exclusion of bottom trawling. Major goals of the project are i. the initial assessment of the environmental state and its variability in- and outside the three Natura 2000 areas Fehmarnbelt, Oder- and Rönnebank under the ongoing pressure of bottom trawling and ii. the general assessment of the effect of bottom trawling on benthic communities and benthic biogeochemical functioning as well as their development after fishery exclusion. The cruise AL570 concludes a series of three previous expeditions EMB238 (2020) and EMB267/268 (2021) and aimed to survey all components of the benthic food web including prokaryotes, protozoans, meiofauna and macrofauna, as well as sediment properties and biogeochemical processes in selected working areas in- and outside of the MPA. The working program comprised 156 station activities of various gears for biological and biogeochemical sampling of sediments. Solute exchange between the sediment and the water column was investigated using Landers and a novel underwater vehicle the Deep-Sea Rover (DSR) Panta Rhei. Investigations in the water column, seafloor observation and deployments of a dredge supplemented the station work. Due to stormy weather in situ solute fluxe measurements were not performed at the Rönnebank.