Benthic community structure on offshore northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) grounds north of Iceland

The main fisheries of northern shrimp in Icelandic waters are located west and north of Iceland. These locations are studied in an annual survey to estimate stock size and distribution of northern shrimp. In July 2015, an additional survey was conducted to study the benthic community structure and function to describe the habitat where the northern shrimp fisheries take place. Underwater images were taken from 26 stations, grab samples were collected at 11 stations and in addition, by-catch was collected from the annual Icelandic shrimp survey in August 2015. The sampling sites, despite being distributed throughout a relatively large area north of Iceland, were rather uniform in relation to sediment type and fauna composition. The stations were similar in grain size and dominated by soft sediment of sand and silt/mud and soft sediment fauna. The infauna was mainly burrowing infauna with affinity to soft sediment and surface deposit feeding. The epifauna were free-living crawlers with affinity for predation feeding habit. No relationship with environment was observed for either the epifauna or the infauna. Species diversity and community composition did not vary with depth, probably because of the narrow depth range of the sites. This study provides the first data on benthic in- and epifauna in northern shrimp fishery locations north of Iceland, which can later be used to estimate possible changes and/or the effect of shrimp fishing within this area