Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf
Concerted efforts are being made to understand the current and past processes that have shaped Antarctic biodiversity. However, high rates of new species discoveries, sampling patchiness and bias make estimation of biodiversity there difficult. Antarctic continental shelf benthos is better studied i...
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Online Access: | http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11097/ |
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ftnerc:oai:nora.nerc.ac.uk:11097 2023-05-15T13:23:33+02:00 Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf Kaiser, Stefanie Barnes, David K. A. Sands, Chester J. Brandt, Angelika 2009 http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11097/ unknown Springer Kaiser, Stefanie; Barnes, David K. A. orcid:0000-0002-9076-7867 Sands, Chester J. orcid:0000-0003-1028-0328 Brandt, Angelika. 2009 Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf. Marine Biodiversity, 39 (1). 27-43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0004-9 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0004-9> Marine Sciences Biology and Microbiology Ecology and Environment Publication - Article PeerReviewed 2009 ftnerc https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0004-9 2023-02-04T19:27:08Z Concerted efforts are being made to understand the current and past processes that have shaped Antarctic biodiversity. However, high rates of new species discoveries, sampling patchiness and bias make estimation of biodiversity there difficult. Antarctic continental shelf benthos is better studied in the Ross, Weddell and Scotia seas, whilst the Amundsen Sea has remained biologically unexplored largely because of severe ice conditions year-round. Here we report results from examination of the first benthic biological samples taken from the Amundsen Sea. We compare relative abundance, taxonomic richness and faunal composition of isopod families, and genera and species within two example families (i.e. Desmosomatidae and Nannoniscidae) from the Amundsen Sea with complementary sampling from the Scotia Sea. Benthic samples were taken from inner and outer Pine Island Bay (eastern Amundsen Sea) sites using an epibenthic sledge at 500 m. Similar samples were also collected from 15 Scotia arc sites at 160- to 500-m depths. The relative abundance of isopods in the Amundsen Sea samples was high and surprisingly less variable than across samples in the Scotia Sea. The abundance structure of isopods at family level was compared across different Antarctic seas. We found that in the Amundsen, Scotia and Ross Seas two families dominated abundance. In contrast, isopod abundance reported in the literature from Weddell Sea samples was much more evenly distributed across families. The Amundsen continental shelf isopod fauna appears to be rich, with 96% of individuals belonging to currently undescribed species. Most of the genera have either been described or found elsewhere, but for many of these genera it is the first time they have been recorded away from the Antarctic continental slope or deep sea. The Amundsen Sea assemblages differed greatly from the Scotia Sea sites in terms of both composition and (species and generic) richness. This was largely due to high consistency between samples compared with the highly variable ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Pine Island Bay Scotia Sea Weddell Sea Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay ENVELOPE(-109.085,-109.085,59.534,59.534) Pine Island Bay ENVELOPE(-102.000,-102.000,-74.750,-74.750) Scotia Sea The Antarctic Weddell Weddell Sea Marine Biodiversity 39 1 27 43 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftnerc |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Marine Sciences Biology and Microbiology Ecology and Environment |
spellingShingle |
Marine Sciences Biology and Microbiology Ecology and Environment Kaiser, Stefanie Barnes, David K. A. Sands, Chester J. Brandt, Angelika Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf |
topic_facet |
Marine Sciences Biology and Microbiology Ecology and Environment |
description |
Concerted efforts are being made to understand the current and past processes that have shaped Antarctic biodiversity. However, high rates of new species discoveries, sampling patchiness and bias make estimation of biodiversity there difficult. Antarctic continental shelf benthos is better studied in the Ross, Weddell and Scotia seas, whilst the Amundsen Sea has remained biologically unexplored largely because of severe ice conditions year-round. Here we report results from examination of the first benthic biological samples taken from the Amundsen Sea. We compare relative abundance, taxonomic richness and faunal composition of isopod families, and genera and species within two example families (i.e. Desmosomatidae and Nannoniscidae) from the Amundsen Sea with complementary sampling from the Scotia Sea. Benthic samples were taken from inner and outer Pine Island Bay (eastern Amundsen Sea) sites using an epibenthic sledge at 500 m. Similar samples were also collected from 15 Scotia arc sites at 160- to 500-m depths. The relative abundance of isopods in the Amundsen Sea samples was high and surprisingly less variable than across samples in the Scotia Sea. The abundance structure of isopods at family level was compared across different Antarctic seas. We found that in the Amundsen, Scotia and Ross Seas two families dominated abundance. In contrast, isopod abundance reported in the literature from Weddell Sea samples was much more evenly distributed across families. The Amundsen continental shelf isopod fauna appears to be rich, with 96% of individuals belonging to currently undescribed species. Most of the genera have either been described or found elsewhere, but for many of these genera it is the first time they have been recorded away from the Antarctic continental slope or deep sea. The Amundsen Sea assemblages differed greatly from the Scotia Sea sites in terms of both composition and (species and generic) richness. This was largely due to high consistency between samples compared with the highly variable ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Kaiser, Stefanie Barnes, David K. A. Sands, Chester J. Brandt, Angelika |
author_facet |
Kaiser, Stefanie Barnes, David K. A. Sands, Chester J. Brandt, Angelika |
author_sort |
Kaiser, Stefanie |
title |
Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf |
title_short |
Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf |
title_full |
Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf |
title_fullStr |
Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf |
title_full_unstemmed |
Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf |
title_sort |
biodiversity of an unknown antarctic sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the amundsen continental shelf |
publisher |
Springer |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11097/ |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-109.085,-109.085,59.534,59.534) ENVELOPE(-102.000,-102.000,-74.750,-74.750) |
geographic |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay Pine Island Bay Scotia Sea The Antarctic Weddell Weddell Sea |
geographic_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarctic Island Bay Pine Island Bay Scotia Sea The Antarctic Weddell Weddell Sea |
genre |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Pine Island Bay Scotia Sea Weddell Sea |
genre_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Pine Island Bay Scotia Sea Weddell Sea |
op_relation |
Kaiser, Stefanie; Barnes, David K. A. orcid:0000-0002-9076-7867 Sands, Chester J. orcid:0000-0003-1028-0328 Brandt, Angelika. 2009 Biodiversity of an unknown Antarctic Sea: assessing isopod richness and abundance in the first benthic survey of the Amundsen continental shelf. Marine Biodiversity, 39 (1). 27-43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0004-9 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0004-9> |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0004-9 |
container_title |
Marine Biodiversity |
container_volume |
39 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
27 |
op_container_end_page |
43 |
_version_ |
1766373118708809728 |