Seabed images taken during POLARSTERN cruise ANT-XXIX-9 (PS82) to the Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Imagery transects with a camera attached to a multibox corer providing seabed images were carried out during POLARSTERN expedition ANT-XXIX/9 (PS82) focussing on the ecology of benthic assemblages on the southern and eastern Weddell Sea shelves. The camera system attached to the multibox corer was composed of one casing housing a Cannon EOS 100 camera, a second casing housing a flash-light, two lights fixed to the multibox corer frame, and 4.5cm distanced parallel lasers providing a scale in the images. The camera was tilted to a 45° angle. The transects were done along the drift trail of the ship, maximum speed was 1knot, and minimum speed varied with current speed. The winch of the ship was used to maintain a distance of approximately 1-2m above the seabed. The seabed images provide insights into the general composition of key species, higher systematic groups and ecological guilds. Within interdisciplinary approaches, distributions of assemblages can be attributed to environmental conditions such as bathymetry, sediment characteristics, water masses and current regimes. The images also contain valuable information on how benthic species are associated to each other. Transect files include individual images, whereas metadata of each image is found in a separate file. Geographical coordinates of images was based on the Posidonia system of the telemetry box attached to the multibox corer. Due to technical problems, St-033 and 044 were carried without Posidonia, thus Latitude and Longitude for each image is unavailable. For all other transects the Posidonia system was functional and, with a few exceptions, most images have their corresponding Latitude and Longitude.