Abstract
Since the 1990s, the marine benthos of the Greenland–Iceland–Faeroe (GIF) Ridge has been sampled through the BIOICE (Benthic Invertebrates of Icelandic waters) and subsequent IceAGE (Icelandic Marine Animals: Genetics and Ecology) projects. Isopod crustaceans formed one of the prominent macrofaunal groups. Most isopod families occurred on both sides of the ridge, but showed side-specific abundance patterns reflecting known distribution from the literature. Our results from 35,536 isopod specimens from 55 epibenthic sled stations show a depth pattern at the family level indicating typical shallow water families like, for example, Paramunnidae or typical deep-water families like, for example, Haploniscidae and Ischnomesidae, while other families did not show a clear depth trend. We hypothesize that the ridge influences the distribution of the families through its effects on the hydrography and sediment characteristics. Total organic carbon (TOC) and mud content significantly explained isopod family distributions, possibly reflecting different habitat use and lifestyle (e.g., infaunal, epifaunal). Our analysis of a subset of 27 selected BIOICE and IceAGE stations and 100 isopod species (22,574 specimens), mostly covering the upper 1000 m depths between Iceland and Norway along the Iceland–Faeroe Ridge (IFR), resulted in four main species assemblages differing in species diversity. Whereas north of the IFR, we found 76 species; south of the IFR, we found 52 species; 40 species occurred both north and south of the IFR. Although the subset of selected stations is limited to a comparably small portion of the IceAGE sampling grid and to a comparably restricted depth range of the upper 1000 m, our result shows the slope area of Northeast Iceland and around the Faeroes and the Norwegian Channel with the highest number of species, especially stations in the thermocline between 400 and 800 m depth, where we observed the turnover from shallow to deep-water faunal elements.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 783-811 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Marine Biodiversity |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: We would like to thank the staff of the Marine Science Centre, Sandger?i, Iceland, in particular Sigr?n Haraldsd?ttir, and the staff of the DZMB in Hamburg, Germany, namely Karen Jeskulke, Antje Fischer, Nicole Gatzemeier and Sven Hoffmann, for sorting the isopods to family level. We wish to thank Sarah Schnurr, Moritz H?ring, Maggy Kurth, and Daniela T?belmann for their contributions, especially Maggy Kurth who provided the first glance on the complete dataset with her bachelor thesis. Angelika Brandt kindly supervised the two bachelor theses of Maggy Kurth and Moritz H?ring and the project study of Daniela T?belmann at the University of Hamburg. We wish to thank Captain Michael Schneider and the crew of RV Meteor and Captain Klaus Ricke and the crew of RV Poseidon for their support during the cruises with the respective vessels in 2011 and 2013. Marina Malyutina was able to visit Hamburg and determine the munnopsid isopods through the financial support of a ?Senckenberg taxonomic grant? in spring 2017. Robert Jennings from the Temple University in Philadelphia kindly did the native speaker corrections of the English of this manuscript. This article is part of the Topical Collection on Biodiversity of Icelandic Waters by Karin Mei?ner, Saskia Brix, Ken M. Halanych, and Anna Jazdzewska. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed by the authors. Permits and approval of field or observational studies have been obtained by the authors. Museum collection numbers are not provided, but a statement is given: So far all material is planned for the final storage in two museums: Zoological Museum Hamburg and Senckenberg Crustacean Collection in Frankfurt. All IceAGE isopod specimens and the BIOICE munnopsids used in this study are available via DZMB HH numbers and stored in the material archive hosted at the DZMB. All remaining BIOICE isopods determined during this study are hosted at the University of Iceland under the responsibility of J?rundur Svavarsson. We do not describe new species and do not use any genetic data. Publisher Copyright: © 2018, Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.Other keywords
- Benthos
- Biogeography
- Depth
- Diversity
- Gradient
- Isopoda
- Subpolar
- Thermocline