HIGH BENTHIC BACTERIA STANDING STOCK IN DEEP ARCTIC BASINS

During the Arctic Expedition ARK 8/3 (August to October 1991) with RV 'Polarstern', sediment samples from 13 staions with water depths of be tween 258 and 4,427 m were taken along a transect from the Barents Sea slope across the deep Arctic Eurasian Basins and the Gakkel Ridge to the Lomonosov Ridge to determine bacterial biomasses and organic carbo n contents. Bacterial abundance dropped along the transect from 3.03 t o 0.63 x 10(8) cells/cm(3), and correspondingly bacterial biomass decr eased from 17.35 to 3.43 mu g C/cm(3) sediment. Positve correlations w ere only found between total organic carbon concentrations of surface sediment layers and biomasses of small coccoid cells and small rods. T he ridges and slopes seem to be sedimentation areas for the larger coc coid cells, presumably cyanobacteria.