In situ incubations with the Gothenburg benthic chamber landers: Applications and quality control

Abstract

In situ incubations of sediment with overlying water provide valuable and consistent information about benthic fluxes and processes at the sediment-water interface. In this paper, we describe our experiences and a variety of applications from the last 14 years and 308 deployments with the Gothenburg benthic chamber lander systems. We give examples of how we use sensor measurements for chamber leakage control, in situ chamber volume determination, control of syringe sampling times, sediment resuspension and stirring quality. We present examples of incubation data for in situ measurements of benthic fluxes of oxygen, dissolved inorganic carbon, nutrients, metals and gases made with our chamber landers, as well as manipulative injection experiments to study nitrogen cycling (injections of 15N nitrate), phosphate retention (injections of marl suspension) and targeted sediment resuspension. Our main goal is to demonstrate the possibilities that benthic chamber lander systems offer to measure solute fluxes and study processes at the sediment-water interface. Based on our experience, we recommend procedures to be used in order to obtain high quality data with benthic chamber landers.