Understanding the ocean, and the complex physical, biological, and biogeochemical systems operating within it, is a challenge for the opening decades of the 21st century. The establishment of multidisciplinary ocean observatories by the Alfred Wegener Institute will help to provide the means to accomplish this goal. Ecological time-series work at the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) site HAUSGARTEN started already in 1999. Since 2014, the establishment of the FRAM (Frontiers in Arctic marine Monitoring) Ocean Observing System improves our monitoring capacities.