THE BARENTS SEA 151 



and Kola (V. Zatzepin, 1939)* Inlets showed that the principal deep parts of 

 both inlets have a reduced benthos biomass as compared to the adjacent parts 

 of the Sea. In front of the entrance into both these inlets and in the seaward 

 part of the Kola Inlet a benthos biomass of 50 to 100 g/m 2 is the rule, where- 

 as all the central and abyssal part of the Motovsky Gulf has a benthos bio- 

 mass of less than 25 g/m 2 , and the corresponding parts of the Kola Inlet 

 about 25 to 50 g/m 2 . This impoverishment should be attributed to the develop- 

 ment of the stagnation phenomena and to greater silting in the deeper parts 

 of the inlet than in the open sea. Considerable areas of the Barents Sea, as we 

 have seen, are occupied by a biomass of more than 300 g/m 2 , consisting chiefly 

 of infauna ; on the Spitsbergen bank the biomass frequently reaches several 

 kilogrammes per m 2 . Such biomass indices have not been observed either in 

 the Motovsky or Kola Inlets, except for the littoral zone. Even the Ascidia 

 obliqua beds, the richest in fauna, have an average biomass of 520 g/m 2 , 

 exceeding 1 kg/m 2 only in a few individual cases. 



R. Leibson (1939) examined the dependence of the infauna biomass on the 

 amount of organic matter, and gave the following average data (for silt sea 

 bottoms only), expressed in percentages of organic carbon content {Table 65). 



Table 65 



Carbon per cent 10 10-1-5 1-5-20 20-30 



Infauna biomass 58-8 64 77 128 



As usual, the quantitative distribution of the epifauna and infauna in the 

 inlets gives a contrasting picture (Fig. 57). The largest accumulation of infauna 

 is found in the depth of the Motovsky Gulf, and the epifauna is found in 

 the coastal waters and the interior part. The total biomass increases farther up 

 the inlet. As for the bottom fauna communities all the middle parts of both 

 inlets are inhabited by the same central Barents Sea community mentioned 

 above ; the whole composition of the dominant and characteristic forms is the 

 same, only in a somewhat different combination. In the inlets the polychaete 

 Maldane sarsi is the most significant (Fig. 58), whereas in the most southern 

 part of the Kola Inlet Maldane sarsi, Spiochaetopterus typicus, Ctenodiscus 

 crispatus and Phascolosoma margaritaceum disappear. The depths there are 

 20 to 60 m ; the floor consists of slightly silty sand and the salinity is somewhat 

 reduced. The interior part of the Kola Inlet forms a different ecological 

 ranges are encountered, comprising qualitatively and quantitatively a fairly 

 rich fauna. Among the echinoderms are Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis 

 and Brisaster fragi/is ; there are large colonies of Gorgoncephalus arcticus, 

 Asterias lincki, Ophiura sarsi, Ophiopholis aculeata ; the polychaetes include 

 Nicomache lumbricalis, Myriochele oculata, Nephthys ciliata, Lumbriconereis 

 fragilis, Trophonia plumosa and side by side with them Aphrodite aculeata ; 



* The quantitative composition of the benthos of the Kola Inlet has been discussed 

 above. 



