BENTHIC COMMUNITIES AS INFLUENCED BY NUCLEAR TESTING AND RADIOACTIVE-WASTE DISPOSAL OFF NOVAYA-ZEMLYA IN THE RUSSIAN ARCTIC

On the material of sampling, accomplished in: (i) Chernaya Inlet of th e Barents Sea (one of the flats of Novaya Zemlya Nuclear Test Site), ( ii) in the Open Kara Sea and (iii) on the shoal off Novaya Zemlya from Stepovogo Fjord to Abrosimov Fjord (sites of radioactive waste dispos al with activity 90% from total for the Kara Sea), characteristics of macro-, meio- and microbenthic bottom communities on the areas of pote ntial radioactive danger are presented. Significant changes in macro- and meiobenthic communities are not revealed. In Chernaya Inlet, where three nuclear explosions were held in 1955-1961, disturbances in micr obenthic protozoa communities are found. These disturbances expressed in the infusoria elimination from the fauna of the inlet deep-water si tes and in morphological abnormality of this group individuals in popu lation, inhabiting low depth of the inlet top, The assumed origin of r evealed disturbances is high concentration (by 3-4 orders of magnitude above the background) of plutonium in bottom sediments of the inlet. Similar responses of the microbenthic flagellates are not detected. (C ) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.