Fjords play an important role in carbon cycling and sequestration, but the burial of organic matter in sediments strongly depends on the composition of macrobenthic communities. We studied three deep, sub-Arctic fjords located in northern Norway to assess the community differentiation of neighbouring fjords and the underlying environmental drivers. The fjords have relatively deep depositional basins (370–570 m), but they differ in sill depth and water exchange. In all fjords studied, the silty sediments were characterised by organic matter of mostly marine origin. We found that each basin was inhabited by a distinct benthic community, with pronounced differences in total abundance, biomass and species diversity. Only in one fjord (Skjerstadfjord), with a shallow sill, a slight mouth-to-head pattern of the community was found. The strong differentiation of macrobenthos among different fjords seems not to be directly associated with environmental drivers such as organic matter input, water masses or depth.

峡湾在碳循环和固存中起着重要作用，但是沉积物中有机物的埋藏在很大程度上取决于大型底栖动物群落的组成。我们研究了位于挪威北部的三个北极深海峡湾，以评估邻近峡湾的社区差异和潜在的环境驱动因素。峡湾有相对较深的沉积盆地（370-570 m），但在基岩深度和水交换方面有所不同。在所有研究的峡湾中，粉质沉积物的特征都是主要来自海洋的有机物。我们发现每个盆地都有一个独特的底栖生物群落，总丰度，生物量和物种多样性存在明显差异。仅在一个峡湾（Skjerstadfjord）的门槛很浅的情况下，发现了该社区的轻微口对头模式。