Benthic abundance and diversity of the Canadian Beaufort Sea

A 0.25 m2 box corer was used for sampling. Shared ship use minimized replication to 3 reps/station on the Amundsen cruises and 1 rep/ station on the Radisson cruise. Shared sediment requirements limited collection of biota to 0.063 - 0.13 m2 of the box corer. Depth sampled was mostly 15 cm. Macrofauna were elutriated from the sediment, fixed in buffered 5% formalin and seawater and preserved in 70% ethanol. Every effort was made to find taxonomic experts to identify the macrofauna to species level. Sediment samples taken from a separate section of the macrofaunal sample were frozen and analyzed for grain size, % N, % organic C and δ13C.