The first leg of AREX 2015 cruise started in Gdansk (8thJune) and finished in Tromso (18th June). On the way from Gdansk to Tromso we visited 3 fjords: Raunefjorden, Hjeltefjorden and Balsfjorden. In each fjord three materials for DWARF were collected at three stations. Samples of marine plankton and benthos (WP 3, WP4 and WP5) were collected together with the background environmental info as CTD measurements and sediment samples for geochemical analyses. Multinet, WP2 nets and LOPC was used to survey plankton communities, while van Veen grabs, small box-corer and Nemisto corer were used for sediment and soft-bottom fauna sampling. Also Bryozoans encrusting rocks were collected with use of triangle dredge in each fjord at depth transects (50m, 100m and 150m depth).

Localisation of Raunefjorden and our sampling stations


Localisation of Hjeltefjorden and our sampling stations


Localisation of Balsfjorden and our sampling stations

DWARF participants of the cruise: Maria Włodarska-kowalczuk (cruise scientific leader, bentos), Marta Głuchowska (plankton), Mikołaj Mazurkiewicz (bentos), Emilia Jankowska (benths), Barbara Oleszczuk (bentos), Anna Stepień (bentos, Bryozoa), Lukasz Hoppe (LOPC, CTD), Justyna Wawrzynek (plankton) and scientific equipment specialists - Krzysztof Rosiński and Adrians Niszcz