Survey report from the joint Norwegian/Russian Ecosystem Survey in the Barents Sea and adjacent waters, August - October 2017

The aim of the joint Norwegian/Russian ecosystem survey in the Barents Sea and adjacent waters, August-October (BESS) is to monitor the status of abiotic and biotic factors and changes of these in the Barents Sea ecosystem. The survey has since 2004 been undertaken annually in the autumn. The survey is conducted jointly by the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) in Norway and the Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (PINRO) in Russia. The general survey plan and tasks were agreed upon at the annual IMR-PINRO Meeting in March 2017. It was decided to keep all the main tasks of the survey similar to previous years. It was also decided to conduct the BESS 2017 by “classical scheme” from south to north, conduct some additional bottom trawl hauls for the demersal fish index estimation, and additional acoustic transects for the capelin stock size assessment. Ship routes and other technical details were agreed by correspondence between the survey coordinators. The survey was conducted by the Norwegian research vessels: “G.O. Sars”, “Johan Hjort”, and “Helmer Hanssen”, and the Russian vessel “Vilnyus”. Survey coordinators in 2017 was Dmitry Prozorkevich (PINRO) and Geir Odd Johansen (IMR). The scientists, technicians and guests taking part in the survey onboard the research vessels are listed in table 1 below. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all the crew and scientific personnel onboard RVs “Vilnyus”, “G.O. Sars”, “Johan Hjort” and “Helmer Hanssen” for their dedicated work, as well as all the people involved in planning and reporting of BESS 2017.publishedVersio