This dataset contains records of taxonomic groups that are considered VME-IT by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Resources (CCAMLR) and their relative percent abundances compared to non-VME-IT and bare substrate based on video footage captured by submarine deployed by the MY Arctic Sunrise during their Antarctica expeditions. The first took place in 2018 and focused within the Gerlache Strait and along the western Antarctic Peninsula and the Antarctic Sound in January 2018. Dives were conducted beginning 19th to 27th January 2018. A second expedition took place in 2022 and focused along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula in the Vegas Basin and the Erebus and Terror Gulf. Dives were conducted from 26th February to 6th March 2022. The data are published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes locality, coordinates, event date, depth, sampling protocol, sampling effort, occurrence status, vernacular name, scientific name and taxa classification. Multimedia associated with this resource is available at Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6760063

This dataset is published by SCAR-AntOBIS under the license CC-BY 4.0. Please follow the guidelines from the SCAR and IPY Data Policies (https://www.scar.org/excom-meetings/xxxi-scar-delegates-2010-buenos-aires-argentina/4563-scar-xxxi-ip04b-scar-data-policy/file/) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via data-biodiversity-aq@naturalsciences.be. Issues with dataset can be reported at https://github.com/biodiversity-aq/data-publication/

This dataset is part of the Southern Benthics VME project in conjunction with Greenpeace International which conducted the expedition.