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

Amon, Diva J.; Copley, Jonathan T.; Dahlgren, Thomas G.; Horton, Tammy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4250-1068; Kemp, Kirsty M.; Rogers, Alex D.; 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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.07.003

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.07.003

Abstract/Summary

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.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.07.003
ISSN:	09670645
Additional Keywords:	Whale fall; Wood fall; Organic fall; Seamount; Deep sea; Idas; Xylophaga
NORA Subject Terms:	Marine Sciences
Date made live:	11 Jan 2016 15:10 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/512622

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.07.003

ISSN:

09670645

Additional Keywords:

Whale fall; Wood fall; Organic fall; Seamount; Deep sea; Idas; Xylophaga

NORA Subject Terms:

Marine Sciences

Date made live:

11 Jan 2016 15:10 +0 (UTC)