Description: Deep-sea ecosystems, limited by their inability to use primary production as a source of carbon, rely on other sources to maintain life. Sedimentation of organic carbon into the deep sea has been previously studied, however, the high biomass of sedimented Sargassum algae discovered during the VEMA Transit expedition in 2014/2015 to the southern North Atlantic, and its potential as a regular carbon input, has been an underestimated phenomenon. To determine the potential for this carbon flux, a literature survey of previous studies that estimated the abundance of surface water Sargassum was conducted. We compared these estimates with quantitative analyses of sedimented Sargassum appearing on photos taken with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) directly above the abyssal sediment during the expedition. Organismal communities associated to Sargassum fluitans from surface waters were investigated and Sargassum samples collected from surface waters and the deep sea were biochemically analyzed (fatty acids, stable isotopes, C:N ratios) to determine degradation potential and the trophic significance within deep-sea communities. The estimated Sargassum biomass (fresh weight) in the deep sea (0.07 − 3.75 g/m2) was several times higher than that estimated from surface waters in the North Atlantic (0.024 – 0.84 g/m2). Biochemical analysis showed degradation of Sargassum occurring during sedimentation or in the deep sea, however, fatty acid and stable isotope analysis did not indicate direct trophic interactions between the algae and benthic organisms. Thus, it is assumed that components of the deep-sea microbial food web form an important link between the macroalgae and larger benthic organisms. Evaluation of the epifauna showed a diverse nano- micro-, meio, and macrofauna on surface Sargassum and maybe transported across the Atlantic, but we had no evidence for a vertical exchange of fauna components. The large-scale sedimentation of Sargassum forms an important trophic link between surface and benthic production and has to be further considered in the future as a regular carbon input to the deep-sea floor in the North Atlantic.

Description: A new type of epibenthic sledge is presented, which possesses an additional supranet above the epinet. Both nets are closed by an opening/closing device in the water column. The new construction allows a selective catch ofhigher suprafauna, which swims 1–1.33m above the seafloor, and a good discrimination between real suprafauna and epifauna. In total, 79581 Peracarida were sampled at 8 stations at about 75°N and 12°W, off Greenland. Of these, Isopoda were usually the most abundant group in the epinet, Amphipoda in the supranet. At the stations where suprafauna was abundant, the numbers of Mysidacea were usually higher in the epinet than in the supranet, probably due to differences in food supply, i.e. the enrichment of food in the benthic boundary layer.

Description: During the German–Russian expedition KuramBio (Kuril–Kamchatka Biodiversity Studies) from board of the RV Sonne to the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench and adjacent abyssal plain, benthic samples were taken by means of a camera-epibenthic sledge. Amongst one of the most diverse macrobenthic taxa, the Isopoda (Crustacea, Malacostraca), Ischnomesidae were the fifth most abundant isopod family in the Kuril–Kamchatka area and were sampled with 24 species from 5 genera in 21 hauls at 12 stations. Fortimesus occurs most frequently in the samples (36% of all Ischnomesidae sampled), followed by Stylomesus (26%), Heteromesus (23%), Ischnomesus (10%) and Gracilimesus (4%). Number of ischnomesid individuals is highest at station 10-12 with 35 specimens, followed by station 12-4 (30 ind.), station 6-12 (29 ind.), station 9-9 (28), and station 1-11 (24). At station 4-3 only 1 specimen was found. A key to all genera of Ischnomesidae is provided. Two new species from two genera: Stylomesus Wolff, 1956 and Fortimesus Kavanagh and Wilson, 2007 are described from the KuramBio material. Stylomesus malyutinae sp. nov. is distinguished by the smooth body surface, the shape of pleotelson and the length of uropods from other species of the genus from the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Fortimesus trispiculum sp. nov. is characterised by anterolateral projections of pereonites 1–3 which are forming an angle of about 45° with the longitudinal body axis decreasing in length from anterior to posterior.

Description: The abyssal macrobenthos of the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench (KKT) area was sampled for the first time using a fine-meshed camera-epibenthic sledge (C-EBS) during the German–Russian KuramBio expedition 2012 (RV Sonne, 223 cruise). Crustaceans of the order Isopoda were one of the dominant macrobenthic taxa, and the family Munnopsidae was the most abundant and diverse among 17 collected asellotan families, comprising about 48% of all isopods. During the KuramBio expedition no less than 80 species of 28 genera and eight subfamilies of Munnopsidae were collected with 21 EBS hauls at 12 stations. About 80% species are new to science and half of the genera and the subfamily Lipomerinae are recorded for the first time in the Northwest Pacific. The most abundant and speciose subfamily was Eurycopinae (58% of all specimens and 29 % of species), followed by Ilyarachninae (12% and 16%). Most species are rare and occur with low abundance at one or few stations. Ten most numerous species belonging to the genera Eurycope (5 species), Microcope (2), Disconectes (1), Ilyarachna (1) and Aspidarachna (1) comprised 68% of all munnopsids. The species Eurycope sp.1 and Microcope ovata ( Birstein, 1970) were the most abundant and frequent species, occurring at all stations. The highest abundance of Munnopsidae and high diversity, with 32 species, occurred at station 3–9 on the western slope of the KKT. The cluster analysis of the Bray–Curtis similarity shows a low similarity between stations. The least similar was station 1-10, with only 26% similarity with other stations. Low similarity also characterized station 3–9 (34%). The comparison with known data revealed differences in species composition of Munnopsidae of the abyssal plain of the KKT area and the fauna of adjacent bathyal and hadal zones. Similar ratios of the munnopsid subfamilies and genera and some similar species have been revealed for the KuramBio and ANDEEP areas.

Description: This study focusses on the isopod biodiversity in the abyssal area southeast of the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench. The KuramBio (Kuril–Kamchatka Biodiversity Studies) expedition in summer 2012 collected altogether 10,169 isopods from 21 C-EBS hauls at 12 stations, belonging to 19 families, 73 genera and 207 species from the depth range between 4830 and 5780 m. Munnopsidae and Desmosomatidae were the most abundant and species-rich families, Eurycope (Munnopsidae) and Macrostylis (Macrostylidae) the most abundant genera. An nMDS plot on the basis of the Cosine similarity index reveals no clear pattern and all hauls to be different from each other. We compared our data with 12 stations from the same depth range sampled by the Russian RV Vityaz about 50 years ago and were able to identify several species collected by the RV Vityaz. The identified isopod species belonged to the families Munnopsidae, Macrostylidae, Haploniscidae, Desmosomatidae, Ischnomesidae and Nannoniscidae. Of the 333 individuals collected by the RV Vityaz, Haploniscidae and Munnopsidae were the most abundant families. Desmosomatidae were only represented by 〈1% of the isopod individuals. However, the rarefaction curves of both the KuramBio and the Vityaz samples are not approaching an asymptote, indicating that even after repeated sampling just a part of the local fauna has been recorded so far.

Description: Abyssal macrofaunal composition of 21 epibenthic sledge hauls from twelve stations taken in the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench (KKT) and at the adjacent abyssal plain, Northwest Pacific, is presented. Sampling with the fine meshed epibenthic sledge yielded higher abundances and species richness than was reported from previous expeditions from board of RV Vityaz. In total 84,651 invertebrates were sampled with RV Sonne between July and September of 2012 (31,854 invertebrates if standardised for 1000 m2 trawled distances) from 41 taxa of different taxonomic ranks (15 phyla, 28 classes, 7 orders) were sampled from a trawled area of 53,708 m² and have been analyzed. Few taxa were frequent and most taxa were rare in the samples, twelve taxa occurred with more than 1% frequency. Of these, the Polychaeta were most abundant followed by the benthic Copepoda and Isopoda. Total numbers of individuals varied between stations and were highest with 4238 individuals at station 2-10 close to the KKT in 4865 m depth and lowest with 374 individuals at station 6-11 in 5305 m depth. At this station also the lowest number of taxa occurred (18 taxa) while the highest number occurred with 31 taxa at station 3-9 in 4991 m depth. Numbers of individuals decreased with increasing depth between 4830 and 5780 m. Crustaceans of the superorder Peracarida were one of the dominating taxa with four orders occurring frequently in most samples. In total, Isopoda were most important and occurred with 59% of all peracarid orders sampled, followed by Amphipoda with 21%, Tanaidacea with 11%, Cumacea with 9%, and Mysidacea with 〈1%. The communities of the stations (and hauls) of the KKT abyssal area differ in terms of taxon composition from each other. A cluster analysis (nMDS) performed for all sampled stations revealed no clear pattern of community similarity between stations or hauls. All hauls close to the trench (2-9 and 2-10 close to the eastern slope of the KKT; and 3-9 and 4-3 at the western slope) were most different to the other hauls. Hauls 8-9 and 8-12 as well as 5-10 and 7-10 in the approximate centre of the overall research area were most similar (88% similarity). The non-isolated KKT area is characterized by higher abundances and higher benthic species richness than the geographically isolated and young deep-sea basin of the Sea of Japan.

Description: During the German–Russian KuramBio (Kuril–Kamchatka Biodiversity Studies) expedition with the RV Sonne from July to September 2012, a 0.25 m2 box corer was used to sample the benthic fauna of the Kuril–Kamchatka area. 23 cores were deployed at 12 stations, and in total 36,648 individuals could be identified from a combined surface area of 5.75 m2. Total faunal densities ranged from 1024 to 16,592 ind. m−2, respectively, for the macrofauna from 436 to 3520 ind. m−2. The fauna was dominated by Nematoda (65%), even though this group and other meiofaunal taxa were only partially retained by the 300 µm screen that was used as the smallest screen for this study. The remaining part of the fauna was dominated by polychaetes (23%), followed by peracarid crustaceans (6%) and molluscs (3%). Most of the collected taxa occurred very patchily. Over 80% of the animals were extracted from the upper 2 centimeters of the sediment. Compared to other regions of the Pacific the density of the benthic fauna was unusually high. At the upper slope of the continental margin of the trench and at the southern part of the area the benthic fauna was most taxon rich. Station 3 from the continental slope of the trench was also most rich in terms of faunal density (total numbers of ind. m−2), followed by the station 11 and 12 from that the southernmost part of the abyss. Although the Kuril–Kamchatka area has been sampled on several expeditions during the last century, and some studies on the biomass of the benthic fauna have been published, this study offers the first quantitative community analysis of the benthic fauna in terms of abundance and taxon richness.

Description: During the German–Russian expedition KuramBio (Kuril–Kamchatka Biodiversity Studies) to the northwest Pacific Kuril–Kamchatka Trench and its adjacent abyssal plain, we found several kinds and sizes of plastic debris ranging from fishing nets and packaging to microplastic in the sediment of the deep-sea floor. Microplastics were ubiquitous in the smaller fractions of the box corer samples from every station from depths between 4869 and 5766 m. They were found on the abyssal plain and in the sediments of the trench slope on both sides. The amount of microplastics differed between the stations, with lowest concentration of 60 pieces per m2 and highest concentrations of more than 2000 pieces per m2. Around 75% of the microplastics (defined here as particles 〈1 mm) we isolated from the sediment samples were fibers. Other particles were paint chips or small cracked pieces of unknown origin. The Kuril–Kamchatka Trench area is known for its very rich marine fauna (Zenkevich, 1963). Yet we can only guess how these microplastics accumulated in the deep sea of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench area and what consequences the microplastic itself and its adsorbed chemicals will have on this very special and rich deep-sea fauna. But we herewith present an evaluation of the different kinds of plastic debris we found, as a documentation of human impact into the deep sea of this region of the Northwest Pacific.