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Observations of fauna attending wood and bone deployments from two seamounts on the Southwest Indian Ridge

Observations of fauna attending wood and bone deployments from two seamounts on the Southwest Indian Ridge
Observations of fauna attending wood and bone deployments from two seamounts on the Southwest Indian Ridge
The Southwest Indian Ridge is an ultraslow-spreading mid-ocean ridge with numerous poorly-explored seamounts. The benthic fauna of seamounts are thought to be highly heterogeneous, within even small geographic areas. Here we report observations from a two-year opportunistic experiment, which was comprised of two deployments of mango wood and whale bones. One was deployed at 732 m on Coral Seamount (~32 °S) and the other at 750 m on Atlantis Bank (~41 °S), two areas with little background faunal knowledge and a significant distance from the continental shelf. The packages mimic natural organic falls, large parcels of food on the deep-sea floor that are important in fulfilling the nutritional needs and providing shelter and substratum for many deep-sea animals. A large number of species colonised the deployments: 69 species at Coral Seamount and 42 species at Atlantis Bank. The two colonising assemblages were different, however, with only 11 species in common. This is suggestive of both differing environmental conditions and potentially, barriers to dispersal between these seamounts. Apart from Xylophaga and Idas bivalves, few organic-fall specialists were present. Several putative new species have been observed, and three new species have been described from the experiments thus far. It is not clear, however, whether this is indicative of high degrees of endemism or simply a result of under-sampling at the regional level.
Whale fall, Wood fall, Organic fall, Seamount, Deep sea, Idas, Xylophaga
0967-0645
122–132
Amon, Diva J.
b700d27b-4c13-484a-bad6-0be8f753b46d
Copley, Jonathan T.
5f30e2a6-76c1-4150-9a42-dcfb8f5788ef
Dahlgren, Thomas G.
35e04ba6-303d-44d0-ae60-f434977dc0ff
Horton, Tammy
c4b41665-f0bc-4f0f-a7af-b2b9afc02e34
Kemp, Kirsty M.
7780a4df-ce5a-4751-9ea6-cb173e863103
Rogers, Alex D.
fb474198-f059-48f7-b637-74617b5023f6
Glover, Adrian G.
91192a3a-fc25-4c1f-b062-2e4da183272e
Amon, Diva J.
b700d27b-4c13-484a-bad6-0be8f753b46d
Copley, Jonathan T.
5f30e2a6-76c1-4150-9a42-dcfb8f5788ef
Dahlgren, Thomas G.
35e04ba6-303d-44d0-ae60-f434977dc0ff
Horton, Tammy
c4b41665-f0bc-4f0f-a7af-b2b9afc02e34
Kemp, Kirsty M.
7780a4df-ce5a-4751-9ea6-cb173e863103
Rogers, Alex D.
fb474198-f059-48f7-b637-74617b5023f6
Glover, Adrian G.
91192a3a-fc25-4c1f-b062-2e4da183272e

Amon, Diva J., Copley, Jonathan T., Dahlgren, Thomas G., Horton, Tammy, Kemp, Kirsty M., Rogers, Alex D. and Glover, Adrian G. (2017) Observations of fauna attending wood and bone deployments from two seamounts on the Southwest Indian Ridge. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 136, 122–132. (doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.07.003).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The Southwest Indian Ridge is an ultraslow-spreading mid-ocean ridge with numerous poorly-explored seamounts. The benthic fauna of seamounts are thought to be highly heterogeneous, within even small geographic areas. Here we report observations from a two-year opportunistic experiment, which was comprised of two deployments of mango wood and whale bones. One was deployed at 732 m on Coral Seamount (~32 °S) and the other at 750 m on Atlantis Bank (~41 °S), two areas with little background faunal knowledge and a significant distance from the continental shelf. The packages mimic natural organic falls, large parcels of food on the deep-sea floor that are important in fulfilling the nutritional needs and providing shelter and substratum for many deep-sea animals. A large number of species colonised the deployments: 69 species at Coral Seamount and 42 species at Atlantis Bank. The two colonising assemblages were different, however, with only 11 species in common. This is suggestive of both differing environmental conditions and potentially, barriers to dispersal between these seamounts. Apart from Xylophaga and Idas bivalves, few organic-fall specialists were present. Several putative new species have been observed, and three new species have been described from the experiments thus far. It is not clear, however, whether this is indicative of high degrees of endemism or simply a result of under-sampling at the regional level.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 17 July 2015
Published date: 25 February 2017
Keywords: Whale fall, Wood fall, Organic fall, Seamount, Deep sea, Idas, Xylophaga
Organisations: Ocean and Earth Science, Marine Biogeochemistry

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 385772
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/385772
ISSN: 0967-0645
PURE UUID: 1bf9e389-4c4a-4143-8899-dd009b3625c1
ORCID for Jonathan T. Copley: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3333-4325

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Jan 2016 15:03
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: Diva J. Amon
Author: Thomas G. Dahlgren
Author: Tammy Horton
Author: Kirsty M. Kemp
Author: Alex D. Rogers
Author: Adrian G. Glover

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