The German waters contain around 1.6 millions of tons of munition, mostly dumped after the world wars. Within Lübeck Bay (Baltic Sea) the majority of the munition is concentrated in the officially designated dumpsites (Munition Cadaster "AmuCad", EGEOS GmbH, www.amucad.org ). However, many individual items or piles are found outside of these areas. Most of the munition contain conventional explosives, primarily 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), which is toxic and is known to cause cancer in various organisms in water solutions with concentration > 1 mg/l (Lotufo et l., 2017; Beck et al., 2018). The structure and composition of epifauna was investigated on the dumped munition in the previously unknown site using a remotely operated vehicle (BlueRobotics, model BlueROV2) during cruise AL622 with RV 'Alkor' on 19. October 2024. Nine individual munition objects and the surrounding sediment were observed in the central-northern Lübeck Bay at depth of 19-21 m at the area of ~500 m². Two videos have been made: the one of all objects filmed with the in-built camera; the second of six objects filmed with the additional GoPro3 camera, mounted on the ROV. Objects were identified as warheads from the Fieseler Fi 103 (known as V1) packed for transporting in additional metal carcass. The warheads are on a different stage of degradation. Their metal parts are covered with dense epifauna communities and bare explosives is mostly free from fouling.
Makrozoobenthos of soft-bottom benthic communiy was collected by van-Veen grabs and beam trawls to sample the infauna and epifauna. Samples were collected between 2003 and 2004 in spring, summer and autumn each year. Benthic data were collected in the North Sea, German Bight off the East Frisian Coast. Benthic community was evaluated for potential changes after cessation of bottom trawling. In July 2003, the research platform FINO 1 was built as a pilot project for future offshore wind farms. The platform is located at 28 m water depth in the German Bight, 45 km off the Island Borkum. The surroundings of the platform (500 m radius) are closed for all shipping activities (except scientific activities) and are thus protected from trawling activities. Two zones beyond the 500 m radius, 9 km apart from the protected area in north-western and eastern direction were chosen as reference sites. Sampling follwed a BACI-design (before-after-control-impact), i.e. comparing the protected area to the further trawled areas. In both areas, protected and trawled area, sampling of the benthic community was carried out with “RV Heincke” during 2 periods. The first sampling period, defined as “pre-closure”, includes two sampling campaigns: one campaign 3 months before and one campaign 2 weeks after fishery closure of protected area (March/April and July/August 2003). “Post-closure” sampling was also carried out in two campaigns: one campaign in July/August and one campaign in September/October 2004, i.e. 12-14 months after fishery closure of protected area. Data for each campaign comprise different stations in the area, sampled by grab samples (infauna) and beam trawl samples (epifauna). Biodiversity data of species include abundance (count data) and biomass (wet mass, g) per sample, as well as sediment grain sizes, organic carbon, total carbon, nitrogen and sulfur content as accompanying environmental data.