Fróðskaparrit

						REYÐÆTI AV SLAGNUM MYSIDACEA A LANDGRUNNINUM

71

water impossible. Information on the BIO-

FAR stations (date, position, depth, sam-

pling gear, mean bottom temperature and

its standard deviation, water mass or mix-

ture of water masses, maximum amplitude

of the total tidal current, and bottom type)

is given in Nørrevang et al. (1994). The

oceanographic data were originally calcu-

lated by H. Westerberg (see Westerberg,

1990).

Sorting and preliminary analyses of ma-

terial from stations shallower than 100 m

revealed a number of species never report-

ed from the Faroes. To sample the marine

invertebrate fauna from all habitats from

the upper splash zone down to 100 m depth

a successor to the BIOFAR programme was

needed. The Faroese Government and the

Carlsberg Foundation, Denmark generous-

ly funded a new 3-year programme called

BIOFAR 2, which started in 1995. Infor-

mation on stations sampled during BIO-

FAR 2 can be obtained from Kaldbak Ma-

rine Laboratory, FR-180 Kaldbak, the

Faroes.

Material and results

The BIOFAR material was collected using

benthic sampling gear (Nørrevang et ai,

1994). The epibenthic sampler collects ma-

terial only at the sediment/water interface

and is especially suited for hyperbenthic or-

ganisms (species often swimming in the

benthic boundary layer) like mysids, while

the other gear (detritus sledge, triangular

dredge, shrimp trawl and Smith-Mclntyre

grab) may have caught specimens in the

water column. The BIOFAR 2 material so

far has been collected by intertidal hand-

sampling, diving and use of a light triangu-

lar dredge and a modifíed Ockelmann de-

tritus-sledge (Brattegard, 1973).

Mysids from BIOFAR were found in 66

samples taken by the epibenthic sampler

(86 % of the epibenthic sampler deploy-

ments), 52 (32 %) detritus sledge samples,

5(13%) bottom trawl samples, 2 (1 %) tri-

angular dredge samples, and 2(1 %) Smith-

Mclntyre grab samples. A preliminary ac-

count of the distribution of my sids based on

part of the material was given by Brattegard

andFossá(1992).

Fossá et al. (1992) concluded that in an

area of complex hydrography benthic

species can be grouped and classified ac-

cording to their distribution in the water

masses. Knowledge about the water masses

in the Faroe area may be important for zoo-

geographical analyses. In the area there are,

according to Westerberg (1990), three main

categories of water mass which differ with

respect to formation area and general flow

direction: Atlantic Water (AW), bottom wa-

ter of the Norwegian Sea (NW), and Arctic

Intermediate Water (AI).

The Atlantic Water (AW) forms the in-

flow of water in the upper layers to the Nor-

wegian Sea. The salinity is > 35.1. The

temperature is above 7 °C, except in de-

pressions on the Faroe plateau where win-

ter-cooled water might be trapped.

The bottom water of the Norwegian Sea

(NW) forms the coldest component of the

water overflowing the thresholds around

the Faroes to the Atlantic. The temperature

is below 0 °C.

The Arctic Intermediate Water (AI) is