Plattform Platform	Reise-Nr. Cruise-No.	Zeitraum Period	Projekt Project	Arbeitsgebiet Working area
Heincke	HE317	09.02.2010 - 22.02.2010		North Sea Doggerbank

Fahrtleiter Chief Scientist	Institut Institute	Auslaufhafen Port of departure	Einlaufhafen Port of return	Stationskarte Station map	Schiffsroute Trackchart
Turkay Michael	Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt	Wilhelmshaven	Wilhelmshaven

Ziel der Reise / Objectives of Cruise:

The interannual variability of the epibenthic fauna of the Dogger Bank is a long term project of the Senckenberg-Institute since 1991. This project aims at gathering basic data which may form the background information for understanding presumed environmental changes. Therefore the study refers to 37 stations that are, whenever possible, sampled on a yearly basis in the same season with the same gear. To gather information about the winter's influence on the bentic species communities, this is the second of three scheduled winter cruises to the Dogger Bank. This cruise was a combined enterprise of the Department for Marine Research at the Senckenberg Institute in Wilhelmshaven gathering endobenthic data and the Department for Marine Zoology at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt am Main, gathering epibenthic data. The fauna is recorded quantitatively from each sample in order to allow studies on relative abundance. Another important aspect is the recording of climate forced changes. This study therefore is also part of the scientific programme of the Research Centre "Biodiversity and Climate (BIK-F)" funded by the state of Hessen since 2008. We thankfully acknowledge this support. The present cruise forms the 18th of the series and gets the suffix DOG-R. All former cruises were labelled after the alphabet with one letter starting with DOG-A in 1992. The first cruise in 1991 was called DOG without any suffix. The cruise started from Bremerhaven, on Tuesday, 2010-02-09. On 12.00 CEST (UTC+1), the vessel left the shipyard and headed towards head the main working area, the Doggerbank. Station 29 was reached on February 10, 2010 at 07.30 CEST. At this station, the research team of Wilhelmshaven (mentioned above) started a series of three grab samples with the VanVeen Grab to gather information about the endobenthic communities. This procedure was repeated on all stations of the endobenthos team. Until the end of the day (22.50 CEST), seven endobenthic stations were sampled. The eighth station we reached was the first station of the epibenthos team. On February 11, 2010 at 01.18 CEST, the first of two 48h-samplings (one sampling sequence every three hours) started, using the following technique: current strength and direction were measured with a probe (RCM9) at the seafloor and directly under the surface. In addition, a CTD probe was used to measure the temperature and salinity of the water coloumn. Then, a standardized endobenthic sampling with the Ring Dredge was performed (see methods, chapter 3). Subsequently one sample with a 2m-beam-trawl was taken, towed for 2 kn of speed on a length of one nautical mile. These procedures took place on every single epibenthos station (see station map, chapter 4). The exact sequence of stations sampled can be seen at the station list (chapter 4). The sampling at the Dogger Bank ended with the last pass at the second 48h-station on February 20, 2010, 05.44 CEST. Due to increasing winds, sampling had to be stopped before schedule after seven of 16 passes planned at the last station. Due to a bad weather forecast, the vessel was then heading towards Helgoland at 05.50 CEST. It was decided to switch to an alternate programme for the remaining ship time. The area around Helgoland was reached on February 21, 2010. At 06.47 CEST, the first of six samplings performed with the Ring Dredge started at Loreley Bank, area east of Helgoland, to gather control samples of the endobenthic communities at that area. The last sampling at Loreley Bank ended at 09.21 CEST. The vessel then headed towards the Helgoland Trench south of the island. The Beam Trawl was de-ployed once from 10.08 to 10.50 CEST on the routine station sampled by us regularly. The aim of this work was to collect epibenthos-material in order to complement to life-cycle studies of decapod crusta-ceans of the German Bight. At 10.20 CEST, a mud sample was taken with the VanVeen Grab at Helgoland port for the analysis of Dinoflagel

Messungen / Measurements