Spatial distribution patterns of the mega-epibenthos on the continental shelves off the northern Antarctic Peninsula studied from OFOS seabed images taken during POLARSTERN cruise ANT-XXIX/3 (PS81) 2013

The epibenthos of the Southern Ocean shelves plays a significant role in marine ecosystem functioning, including biodiversity processes, but information on its composition, distribution and ecological drivers is still scarce. Here, we report results of a first study on the relationship between the s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Piepenburg, Dieter, Gutt, Julian
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: PANGAEA 2019
Subjects:
Anthozoa
cover
ANT-XXIX/3
Area
Ascidiacea
colonial
solitary
Asteroidea
Bryozoa
Crinoidea
DATE/TIME
Demospongiae
Depth
bathymetric
Echinoidea
Epifauna
other
Event label
Fauna
total
File name
Gorgonaria
Hard substrat
classes
Hemichordata
Hexactinellida
Holothuroidea
deposit-feeding
filter-feeding
Hydrozoa
Infauna indicator
LATITUDE
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Bransfield Strait
Drake Passage
Southern Ocean
Weddell
Weddell Sea
Antarc*
Sea ice
Online Access:https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.897047
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.897047
Description
Summary:The epibenthos of the Southern Ocean shelves plays a significant role in marine ecosystem functioning, including biodiversity processes, but information on its composition, distribution and ecological drivers is still scarce. Here, we report results of a first study on the relationship between the spatial patterns of 18 systematic or functional groups and environmental factors, conducted in the waters off the northern Antarctic Peninsula during RV Polarstern cruise XXIX/3 (PS81) in January-March 2013. To comparatively address this issue at three nested spatial scales, seabed imaging surveys were performed along 28 photographic transects of 2 km length each at water depths from 70 to 770 m in three ecoregions (northwestern Weddell Sea, southern Bransfield Strait and southern Drake Passage), which differ in general environmental setting, primarily oceanographic characteristics and sea-ice dynamics. At a regional (100-km) scale, epibenthic assemblages differed significantly from each other in all three ecoregions, whereas at an intermediate 10-km scale, differences among depth-related habitat types (bank, upper slope, lower slope, deep/canyon) were less pronounced. These regional and intermediate spatial patterns were superimposed by a marked small-scale (10-m) patchiness of epibenthic distribution within the 2-km transects. Obvious correlation between mega-epibenthos and environmental factors (e.g., temperature, salinity, oxygen, sea-ice cover, seabed ruggedness) was found especially for large scales of >2 km.

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