A pioneer morphological and genetic study of the intertidal fauna of the Gerlache Strait (Antarctic Peninsula)

• Published in: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
• Main Authors: Jossart, Quentin, Bauman, David, Moreau, Camille V.E., Saucède, Thomas, Christiansen, Henrik, Brasier, Madeleine J., Convey, Peter, Downey, Rachel, Figuerola, Blanca, Martin, Patrick, Norenburg, Jon L., Rosenfeld, Sebastián, Verheye, Marie, Danis, Bruno
• Other Authors: Belgian Science Policy Office, Federation Wallonia-Brussels, National Fund for Scientific Research (Belgium), Research Foundation - Flanders, Leopold III-Fonds, Royal Belgian Society for Zoology, Belgian American Educational Foundation, European Commission, Generalitat de Catalunya, Natural Environment Research Council (UK), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2023
• Subjects: Benthic ecology; Community structure; DNA barcoding; Seashore; Southern Ocean; Conserve and sustainably use the oceans; seas and marine resources for sustainable development; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Gerlache; Gerlache Strait; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/305256; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11066-3

19 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11066-3.-- Data availability: All genetic data, as well as photographs of voucher specimens, can be publicly accessed and downloaded on boldsystems.org, under the “INTGS” project (Intertidal fauna from the Gerlache Strait). Occurrence data can be found on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, B121 dataset) using the following link: https://doi.org/10.15468/56bv6z. Additional data, tables and figures are also provided as Supplementary materials. The specimens used in this study are hosted at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Brussels, Belgium) – Laboratoire de Biologie Marine The underexplored intertidal ecosystems of Antarctica are facing rapid changes in important environmental factors. Associated with temperature increase, reduction in coastal ice will soon expose new ice-free areas that will be colonized by local or distant biota. To enable detection of future changes in faunal composition, a biodiversity baseline is urgently required. Here, we evaluated intertidal faunal diversity at 13 locations around the Gerlache Strait (western Antarctic Peninsula), using a combination of a quadrat approach, morphological identification and genetic characterization. Our data highlight a community structure comprising four generally distributed and highly abundant species (the flatworm Obrimoposthia wandeli, the bivalve Kidderia subquadrata, and the gastropods Laevilitorina umbilicata and Laevilitorina caliginosa) as well as 79 rarer and less widely encountered species. The most abundant species thrive in the intertidal zone due to their ability to either survive overwinter in situ or to rapidly colonize this zone when conditions allow. In addition, we confirmed the presence of multiple trophic levels at nearly all locations, suggesting that complex inter-specific interactions occur within these communities. Diversity indices contrasted between sampling locations (from 3 to 32 species) and multivariate ...