Preliminary notes on baited trap amphipod collections from the DIVA-3 cruise
(2010) XIVth International Colloquium on Amphipoda — Location: Sevilla, Spain (13.September.2010)
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- The expedition M79/1 DIVA-3 (Deep-Sea Biodiversity and Seamounts in the Atlantic) took place from July 10–August 23, 2009 aboard the German research vessel R/V Meteor. This field project is a component of CeDAMar (Census of the Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life) within the Census of Marine Life. The major goal of this cruise was to document benthic species diversity at abyssal depths in the southwest Atlantic along a latitudinal gradient, starting from 45° south to the equator. The possible effect of biogeographical barriers, such as the mid-Atlantic ridge could then be examined through faunal comparisons to the previously sampled deep-sea basins in the southeast Atlantic. For the first time in the DIVA program, an autonomous baited trap system was employed to sample the mobile, necrophagous organisms at abyssal depths. The free-fall trap was used successfully at 3 stations, once in the Argentine Basin and twice in the Brazilian Basin. There have been few if any published reports of baited trap collections taken in these basins, so these data will yield vital information on amphipod species biogeography and distribution. Sampling depths ranged from 4480–5093m, with bottom times ranging from approximately 29-56 hours. Trapsets were successful at all stations with amphipods recovered in very high numbers. Estimates of numbers collected were in the tens of thousands. Peculiarly, no other invertebrate taxa were collected except amphipods. The following families and species have been tentatively identified from the traps, but more are to be expected when all the material has been completely examined: Alicellidae- Alicella gigantea Chevreux, 1899, Paralicella caperesca Shulenberger & Barnard, 1976 and P. tenuipes Chevreux, 1908; Eurytheneidae- Eurythenes gryllus (Lichtenstein, 1822); Lysianassidae- Abyssorchomene spp. (2-3) Orchomenella gerulicorbis Shulenberger & Barnard, 1976 and Cyclocaris sp.; Scopelocheiridae- Scopelocheirus sp.; Stegocephalidae- Euandania gigantea (Stebbing, 1883) and Valettiopsidae- Valettietta gracilis Lincoln & Thurston, 1983. All are known scavengers, with the exception of the meso-bathypelagic stegocephalid Euandania gigantea, which has been very rarely taken in baited traps. Quantitatively, our data clearly show that necrophagous amphipods in the Argentine and Brazilian Basins are very numerous, but with so few trapsets used, considerable caution should be noted.
Citations
Hendrycks, E. A., De Broyer, C., & Havermans, C. (2010). Preliminary notes on baited trap amphipod collections from the DIVA-3 cruise. XIVth International Colloquium on Amphipoda, Sevilla, Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/160688