The lower bathyal and abyssal seafloor fauna of eastern Australia

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Abstract

Background

Our knowledge of the benthic fauna at lower bathyal to abyssal (LBA, > 2000 m) depths off Eastern Australia was very limited with only a few samples having been collected from these habitats over the last 150 years. In May–June 2017, the IN2017_V03 expedition of the RV Investigator sampled LBA benthic communities along the lower slope and abyss of Australia’s eastern margin from off mid-Tasmania (42°S) to the Coral Sea (23°S), with particular emphasis on describing and analysing patterns of biodiversity that occur within a newly declared network of offshore marine parks.

Methods

The study design was to deploy a 4 m (metal) beam trawl and Brenke sled to collect samples on soft sediment substrata at the target seafloor depths of 2500 and 4000 m at every 1.5 degrees of latitude along the western boundary of the Tasman Sea from 42° to 23°S, traversing seven Australian Marine Parks.

Results

The biological sampling included 35 beam trawls, 28 Brenke sleds, 8 box cores, 20 surface meso-zooplankton tows, and 7 Deep Towed Camera transects. In total, 25,710 specimens were identified to 1084 taxonomic entities, including 847 species-level, 144 genus-level and 69 family-level and 24 higher-level taxa. Of the species-level taxa, only 457 were assigned species-level taxonomic names, which implies that up to 58% of the collected fauna is undescribed. In addition, the ranges of numerous species have been extended to include the western Tasman Sea.

Conclusions

The lower bathyal and abyssal fauna of soft sediment seafloors off eastern Australia has been systematically surveyed for the first time. The resultant collections will provide the foundation for much future ecological, biogeographical, phylogenetic and taxonomic research.

Related collections

Most cited references 113

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Global patterns and predictors of marine biodiversity across taxa.

Derek P. Tittensor, Camilo Mora, Walter Jetz … (2010)

Global patterns of species richness and their structuring forces have fascinated biologists since Darwin and provide critical context for contemporary studies in ecology, evolution and conservation. Anthropogenic impacts and the need for systematic conservation planning have further motivated the analysis of diversity patterns and processes at regional to global scales. Whereas land diversity patterns and their predictors are known for numerous taxa, our understanding of global marine diversity has been more limited, with recent findings revealing some striking contrasts to widely held terrestrial paradigms. Here we examine global patterns and predictors of species richness across 13 major species groups ranging from zooplankton to marine mammals. Two major patterns emerged: coastal species showed maximum diversity in the Western Pacific, whereas oceanic groups consistently peaked across broad mid-latitudinal bands in all oceans. Spatial regression analyses revealed sea surface temperature as the only environmental predictor highly related to diversity across all 13 taxa. Habitat availability and historical factors were also important for coastal species, whereas other predictors had less significance. Areas of high species richness were disproportionately concentrated in regions with medium or higher human impacts. Our findings indicate a fundamental role of temperature or kinetic energy in structuring cross-taxon marine biodiversity, and indicate that changes in ocean temperature, in conjunction with other human impacts, may ultimately rearrange the global distribution of life in the ocean.