| Summary: | 4th International Symposium on Chemosynthesis-Based Ecosystems - Hydrothermal Vents, Seeps and Other Reducing Habitats, Nago, JAPAN, JUN 29-JUL 03, 2009 International audience Since 80's, fauna associated to sunken woods has been collected during exploration cruises of the Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos cruises program (TDSB). In 2004 we started a specific program of cruises devoted to the exploration of sunken-wood habitats. Seven cruises provided sunken-wood organisms in depth ranging from 100-1 500 metres, at three locations corresponding to large basins of sunken-wood accumulation in the south west Pacific: (i) Philippines, (ii) Salomon islands and (iii) Vanuatu. Extra-samples from other TDSB cruises are also available. Indeed, far from these basins, pieces of woods are unevenly catch by trawling and dredging and these erratic substrata, found for example on seamounts, are usually colonized by a typical sunken wood fauna. To enhance the collection of species associated to organic substrata that are difficult to catch at the deep sea floor, we also immersed down traps containing different kinds of baits: pieces of wood, blue whale bones, green turtle shell, and stag horn. These experiments deployed between 12-30 months off New Caledionia and Vanuatu. Samples yielded an abundant and original fauna, notably Bathymodiolinae and Galatheids. Specific diversity of collected zoological groups with taxa specific to this habitat was explored using molecular tools. Here this paper, we report the preliminary finding about the biodiversity of major zoological groups but also fungi found during this program of cruises.
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