Fauna associated with shallow-water methane seeps in the Laptev Sea.

Background: Methane seeps support unique benthic ecosystems in the deep sea existing due to chemosynthetic organic matter. In contrast, in shallow waters there is little or no effect of methane seeps on macrofauna. In the present study we focused on the recently described methane discharge area at the northern Laptev Sea shelf.

Species richness and taxonomic composition of trawl macrofauna of the North Pacific and its adjacent seas.

A checklist is presented of animal species obtained in 68,903 trawl tows during 459 research surveys performed by the Pacific Research Fisheries Center (TINRO-Center) over an area measuring nearly 25 million km in the Chukchi and Bering seas, Sea of Okhotsk, Sea of Japan and North Pacific Ocean in 1977-2014 at depths of 5 to 2,200 m. The checklist comprises 949 fish species, 588 invertebrate species, and four cyclostome species (some specimens were identified only to genus or family level). For each species details are given on the type of trawl (benthic and/or pelagic) and basins where the species was found.

A strategy for the conservation of biodiversity on mid-ocean ridges from deep-sea mining.

Mineral exploitation has spread from land to shallow coastal waters and is now planned for the offshore, deep seabed. Large seafloor areas are being approved for exploration for seafloor mineral deposits, creating an urgent need for regional environmental management plans. Networks of areas where mining and mining impacts are prohibited are key elements of these plans.

Kolgaosides A and B, two new triterpene glycosides from the Arctic deep water sea cucumber Kolga hyalina (Elasipodida: Elpidiidae).

Two novel triterpene holostane nonsulfated pentaosides, kolgaosides A (1) and B (2), and one known, holothurinoside B (3), were isolated from the Arctic sea cucumber Kolga hyalina, the second representative of the family Elpidiidae, order Elasipodida, from which triterpene glycosides have been obtained. The structures of 1 and 2 were elucidated using 1H and 13C NMR and 2D NMR procedures (HSQC, HMBC, COSY, ROESY, TOCSY) and HRESI mass-spectrometry. Kolgaosides A (1) and B (2) demonstrate low cytotoxic activity against the cells of the ascite form of mouse Ehrlich carcinoma and moderate hemolytic activity against mouse erythrocytes, despite the presence of hydroxy groups in the side chains of the aglycones.

An externally brooding acorn worm (Hemichordata, Enteropneusta, Torquaratoridae) from the Russian arctic.

A single specimen of a previously undescribed acorn worm in the family Torquaratoridae was trawled from a bottom depth of about 350 m in the Kara Sea (Russian Arctic). The new species is the shallowest of the exclusively deep-sea torquaratorids found to date, possibly an example of high-latitude emergence. On the basis of ribosomal DNA sequences and morphology, the worm is described here as the holotype of Coleodesmium karaensis n.