The vastness and difficult accessibility of the deep sea, together with the previous thought that it harboured no life, has hampered research in this environment until the nineteenth century, when the exponential discovery of new species was rapidly combined with the development of new gears to explore the deep-sea fauna. Nevertheless, apparatuses developed in the twentieth century are still used to sample benthic organisms nowadays. Among them, box corers (BC) and epibenthic sledges (EBS) are the most common ones applied in macrofaunal studies. In this study, the comparability between these two gears from samples collected at the deep NW Pacific was tested by means of non-permutational ANOVA. Using uni- and multivariate analyses, we tested whether significant differences could be found between gears using the univariate indices: high taxa richness, total abundance, evenness, estimated number of taxa, and Shannon diversity; and the multivariate indices: total abundance, presence|absence, and relative abundance. Results indicate that both gears can be comparable when evenness, estimated number of taxa, and Shannon diversity (univariate indices) are used, as well as relative abundances based on the multivariate data matrix. This means that data derived from the EBS can be used in a quantitative way, for e.g. in an ecological context, up to a certain extent. On the other hand, significant differences between BC and EBS were found for total abundance and species richness. This could be a result of the bigger amount of sediment the EBS collects together with a larger sampled area by this gear, consequently leading to a higher amount of organisms and taxa sampled. Moreover, despite the interchangeability between these two gears was possible for some indices at higher taxa level, caution should be taken into account when comparing data for other deep-sea areas and at species level.

中文翻译：

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box-corer 和底栖雪橇数据在更高分类群水平上的可比性：基于西北太平洋深海样本的案例研究

深海的广阔和难以进入，加上之前认为它没有生命的想法，一直阻碍在这种环境中的研究，直到 19 世纪，新物种的指数发现与新齿轮的发展迅速结合以进行探索深海动物群。尽管如此，20 世纪开发的设备如今仍用于对底栖生物进行采样。其中，箱式取芯器 (BC) 和底栖爬架 (EBS) 是大型动物研究中最常用的。在这项研究中，通过非置换方差分析测试了在西北太平洋深处收集的样本的这两个齿轮之间的可比性。使用单变量和多变量分析，我们测试了是否可以使用单变量指数发现齿轮之间的显着差异：高分类群丰富度、总丰度、均匀度、估计分类群数量和香农多样性；和多变量指数：总丰度、存在|不存在和相对丰度。结果表明，当使用均匀度、估计的分类群数量和香农多样性（单变量指数）以及基于多变量数据矩阵的相对丰度时，两种齿轮都具有可比性。这意味着从 EBS 获得的数据可以在一定程度上以定量方式使用，例如在生态环境中。另一方面，在总丰度和物种丰富度方面发现 BC 和 EBS 之间存在显着差异。这可能是因为 EBS 收集的沉积物数量越多，该装置的采样区域越大，从而导致采样的生物体和分类群数量越多。而且，