Plattform Platform	Reise-Nr. Cruise-No.	Zeitraum Period	Projekt Project	Arbeitsgebiet Working area
Meteor	M86-1B	23.11.2011 - 05.12.2011		North Sea Baltic Sea

Fahrtleiter Chief Scientist	Institut Institute	Auslaufhafen Port of departure	Einlaufhafen Port of return	Stationskarte Station map	Schiffsroute Trackchart
Jurgens Klaus	Leibniz-Institut fur Ostseeforschung, Warnemunde	Visby	Rostock

Ziel der Reise / Objectives of Cruise:

The Baltic Sea with its still ongoing postglacial changes, its natural gradients and strong reactions to climate change and anthropogenic activity can be used in an ideal way to examine basic ecological processes and their variability in marine ecosystems. The most striking characteristics of the Baltic Sea are the extended gradients in primary (topography, energy, salinity) and secondary (organisms, matter flux, oxygen, nutrients, sediments) environmental properties as a result of different dynamical processes. This cruise investigated, besides geomarine tasks, the impacts of salinity and redox gradients on degradation of tDOC, microbially mediated processes (e.g., methane consumption, nitrification), and on the structure and function of pelagic microbial communities. We expect, that heterotrophic microorganisms adapt to this situation by changes in diversity and specific decomposition rates. During the cruise, the following aims are related to the study of microbial diversity and function in the lateral Baltic gradient between Skagerrak and Bothnian Bay: 1. Assessment of structure and (selected) functions of pelagic prokaryotic communities (Bacteria, Archaea) along the salinity gradient. 2. Quantification, chemical characterization and decomposition dynamics of discharged terrestrial DOC from Northern (arctic) soils in relation to microbial diversity in different Baltic Sea basins. 3. Quantification of methane fluxes and consumption along the horizontal and vertical gradients. 3. The identification of microbial key organisms and the relation to activities and functional characteristics (e.g., nitrification) in the vertical pelagic oxygen gradients of the central Baltic Sea. 4. The historic, climate-driven regime shifts of e.g. decomposition dynamics in the central basins recorded in sediments, which is highly dependent e.g. on the temporal variability of bottom water inflow events.

Messungen / Measurements

Verankerungen / Moorings