| Summary: | Benthic communities currently face a variety of threats, including harmful routine commercial trawling and climate change. Currently, Arctic management plans cannot be developed with accuracy due to a lack of knowledge about marine species and habitats; therefore, this study contributes towards filling this gap by mapping and predicting the locations of various habitat-forming taxa in offshore Disko Bay, as habitat-forming taxa provide food and shelter for other organisms. In addition, vulnerable marine ecosystem indicator taxa are highlighted due to their fragile nature and importance to the ecosystem. This study builds upon a pilot study by Krawczyk et al. (2019), and combines data on water depth, habitat, slope, and underwater remote imagery to create a high-resolution taxa distribution map. As a result, the mapped benthic taxa showed different distribution patterns. Sea anemones were mainly impacted by water depth. Deep-sea shrimp and tubeworms were associated with a soft bottom. While the vulnerable marine ecosystem (VME) indicators sea squirts and bryozoans were both associated with a hard bottom, sea squirts were found in all depth ranges and bryozoans were limited to shallower waters. Soft corals were mainly observed in medium depths, while tubeworms were found in greater depths. The VME indicator sponges were found all throughout the study area. However, there is a contentious debate about the VME terminology and the measures which are taken to protect VMEs are questioned by other studies. Nevertheless, this study aids in creating and implementing new management approaches to protect the vulnerable benthic communities. Að botnsamfélögum steðjar nú margvísleg ógn, þ.á.m. skaðlegar reglulegar togfiskveiðar í atvinnuskyni og loftslagsbreytingar. Á þessum tíma er ekki hægt að þróa áætlanir um stjórnun Norðurheimskauta vegna skorts á þekkingu á sjávartegundum og búsvæðum; þessa vegna, fyllir þessi rannsókn í eyðurnar með því að kortleggja og segja fyrir um staðsetningar ýmissa búsvæðis-myndandi ...
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