Deep-sea Holothuroidea off Mauritania

• Main Authors: Calero, B. (Belén), Ramil, F. (Francisco), Ramos, A. (Ana)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo
• Subjects: Biodiversity; assemblages; Holothuroidea; Echinodermata; deep-waters; Mauritania; Northwest Africa; Lofoten; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10508/2682

Among invertebrates, echinoderms are one of the main benthic taxa, especially in deep bottoms, where they constitute the most important group of mobile epifauna (Gage and Tyler, 1991). In addition, holothurians are one of the taxa dominating epibenthic communities in different North Atlantic basins (Billet, 1991), where they can form dense aggregations. Despite the large literature on Atlantic echinoderms, the knowledge of this group in Northwest African waters primarily comes from the pioneering oceanographic expeditions carried out from late nineteenth century to mid twentieth century. However, the current knowledge of holothurians in Mauritanian waters is scarce, and only the works of Koehler and Vaney (1906), Hérouard (1929) and Massin (1993) were focused in this group and mainly on the fauna of the northern continental shelf. This is a taxonomic and ecological study of the holothurians collected during the four multidisciplinary Spanish – Mauritanian surveys (Maurit) carried out from 2007 to 2010 on board R/V Vizconde de Eza in Mauritanian EEZ waters, between Cape Blanc (21ºN) and the Senegalese border (16ºN). A total of 291 stations were sampled between 80 and 2000 m depth, following a stratified random sampling methodology with and using a Lofoten commercial trawl (17.7 m horizontal opening, 5.5 m vertical opening and 35 mm mesh in the cod-end). The holothurians collected in each trawl were sorted to morphospecies level, counted and weighed to obtain quantitative data on their abundance and biomass. Each specimen was photographed and a reference collection was preserved in 70% alcohol for further identification in the laboratory. The identification methodology included the study of the external and internal morphology by dissection and the microscopic study of the endoskeletal calcareous deposits. Quantitative data (numerical abundance and biomass) collected during Maurit-0811, were standardized to 0.1 km2 and their respective matrices were calculated to enable an analysis of similarity between stations ...