ALBERT

Description: Multibeam bathymetry raw data using the ship's own R2Sonic SONIC 2024 Wideband multibeam echosounder was not continuously recorded during RV ELISABETH MANN BORGESE (EMB) cruise EMB304. Data was recorded on 3 separate days (2022-10-25, 2022-10-29, 2017-10-30. This dataset contains a survey in the Baltic Sea. The system settings of the device were set prior to the cruise and data acquisition was not entirely monitored during the survey time. This publication is conducted within the efforts of the German Marine Research Alliance in the core area 'Data management and Digitalization' (Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung, DAM). This dataset is considered to be a test dataset for the incorporation of data from EMB into PANGAEA. The software QINSy from QPS was used for data recording. Data is stored with the regular QINSy data format .db and the auxiliary .xtf data format. Data are not compatible with the open source software package MB-System (Caress, D. W., and D. N. Chayes, MB-System: Mapping the Seafloor, http://www.mbari.org/products/research-software/mb-system/, 2022), therefore - as up to this publication date – professional software like CARIS HIPS/SIPS or QPS QIMERA is needed the post-process the data. Thus, individual data files could not be georeferenced by reading out the files itself using open-source software. Data files contained empty spaces " " in the file names. All files had to be renamed using underscores "_", since PANGAEA database does not allow the usage of spaces " " in file names. Data are unprocessed and therefore contain incorrect depth measurements (artifacts). Note that refraction errors can be expected due to the lack of accurate sound velocity profiles (SVP). Overall, it appears that the data quality differs. The gridded hillshade from data acquired on 2022-10-25 showed relatively many obstacles at the slant beams (bad data quality). Data acquired on 2022-10-29 show in general relatively less obstacles (very good data quality) with elongated structures on the seafloor without a distinct pattern. Data acquired on 2022-10-30 show in general a few obstacles (moderate data quality).

Description: Profound environmental changes, such as drastic sea-ice decline, leave large-scale ecological footprints on the distribution and composition of marine biota in the Arctic. Currently, the impact of such stressors is not sufficiently understood due to the lack of pan-Arctic data that allow for estimating ecological baselines as well as modelling current and forecast potential changes in benthic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Here, we introduce the PAN-Arctic data collection of benthic BIOtas (PANABIO) and discuss its timeliness, potential, and details of its further development. The data collection contains individual datasets with records (presence, counts, abundance, or biomass) of benthic fauna, usually at genus level or species level, which were identified in field samples obtained at point-referenced locations (stations) by means of grabs, towed gear, or seabed imaging. The data cover the entire pan-Arctic realm, i.e.The central Arctic Ocean, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Laptev Sea, Kara Sea, Barents Sea (including the White Sea), Svalbard waters, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, Canadian Archipelago, Beaufort Sea, and Bering Sea as well as some adjacent sub-Arctic regions (Sea of Japan, Gulf of Okhotsk). Currently (as of 14 December 2023), PANABIO includes 27 datasets with a total of 126ĝ€¯388 records of 2978 taxa collected from 11ĝ€¯555 samples taken at 10ĝ€¯596 stations during 1095 cruises between 1800 and 2014. These numbers will increase with more data becoming available over time through contributions from PANABIO users. The data collection is available in a PostgreSQL-based data warehouse that can be accessed and queried through an open-Access front-end web service at https://critterbase.awi.de/panabio (last access: 27 February 2024). A snapshot of the current data collection and its 27 individual datasets is also available from the data publisher PANGAEA (10.1594/PANGAEA.963640, Piepenburg et al., 2023).