Photographic Survey of Benthos Provides Insights Into the Antarctic fish Fauna from the Marguerite Bay Slope and the Amundsen Sea- JOSEPH T
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Antarctic Science 25(1), 31–43 (2013) & Antarctic Science Ltd 2012 doi:10.1017/S0954102012000697 Photographic survey of benthos provides insights into the Antarctic fish fauna from the Marguerite Bay slope and the Amundsen Sea- JOSEPH T. EASTMAN1, MARGARET O. AMSLER2, RICHARD B. ARONSON3, SVEN THATJE4, JAMES B. MCCLINTOCK2, STEPHANIE C. VOS3, JEFFREY W. KAELI5, HANUMANT SINGH5 and MARIO LA MESA6 1Department of Biomedical Sciences, Ohio University, Athens OH 45701, USA 2Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA 3Department of Biological Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA 4Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK 5Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA 6ISMAR-CNR, Istituto di Scienze Marine, UOS di Ancona, Largo Fiera della Pesca, 60125 Ancona, Italy [email protected] Abstract: We reviewed photographic images of fishes from depths of 381–2282 m in Marguerite Bay and 405–2007 m in the Amundsen Sea. Marguerite Bay fishes were 33% notothenioids and 67% non-notothenioids. Channichthyids (47%) and nototheniids (44%) were the most abundant notothenioids. The deep-living channichthyid Chionobathyscus dewitti (74%) and the nototheniid genus Trematomus (66%) were the most abundant taxa within these two families. The most abundant non-notothenioids were the macrourid Macrourus whitsoni (72%) and zoarcids (18%). Amundsen Sea fishes were 87% notothenioids and 13% non-notothenioids, the latter exclusively Macrourus whitsoni. Bathydraconids (38%) and artedidraconids (30%) were the most abundant notothenioids. We observed that Macrourus whitsoni was benthopelagic and benthic and infested by large ectoparasitic copepods. Juvenile (42 cm) Dissostichus mawsoni was not neutrally buoyant and resided on the substrate at 1277 m. Lepidonotothen squamifrons was seen near and on nests of eggs in early December. A Pogonophryne sp. from 2127 m was not a member of the deep-living unspotted P. albipinna group. Chionobathyscus dewitti inhabited the water column as well as the substrate. The pelagic zoarcid Melanostigma gelatinosum was documented in the water column a few metres above the substrate. The zoogeographic character of the Marguerite Bay fauna was West Antarctic or low-Antarctic and the Amundsen Sea was East Antarctic or high-Antarctic. Received 16 May 2012, accepted 12 July 2012, first published online 12 October 2012 Key words: Chionobathyscus, Dissostichus, Lepidonotothen, Macrourus, Notothenioidei, Pogonophryne Introduction abundance and biomass on the high-Antarctic continental shelves (Eastman 2005). Most collecting activity has been The fish fauna of the Antarctic continental shelf and slope devoted to defining the shelf fauna, which is now reasonably includes about 225 species and is unique in the marine realm well known from both taxonomic and ecological perspectives. because its diversity is greatly restricted at higher taxonomic The continental slopes of the Southern Hemisphere, however, levels. The fauna consists primarily of ray-finned fishes are among the least-sampled marine habitats with respect to (superorder Acanthopterygii), including a large radiation of fishes (Eschmeyer et al. 2010), especially in the Antarctic notothenioids (46% of species) that exhibit great morphological region. Furthermore, the longline fishery for the Antarctic and ecological diversity, accompanied by smaller radiations of toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni Norman, 1937) operates liparids (31%) and zoarcids (11%) (Gon & Heemstra 1990). at slope depths of 1000–2000 m (Hanchet et al. 2012), and Although notothenioids lack a swim bladder, they fill a host of this has heightened interest in the composition of the slope niches ranging from small benthivores to a 2 m long, neutrally fauna and the biology of bycatch species. buoyant predator (Eastman 1993). They also dominate fish We had the opportunity to examine underwater photographic images of fishes obtained from two yThis paper is dedicated to the memory of Rebecca Dickhut. Her infrequently explored areas of West Antarctica: the slope of management skills and boundless energy as co-chief scientist of Marguerite Bay (68830'S, 68830'W), located between Adelaide our Oden cruise made it possible for us to capture the images of and Alexander islands near the base of the Antarctic Amundsen Sea fauna highlighted here. Peninsula, and the Amundsen Sea (73800'S, 112800'W) off 31 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 29 Jan 2013 IP address: 132.235.227.74 32 JOSEPH T. EASTMAN et al. Marie Byrd Land. While the pelagic fish fauna of Marguerite C) Bay is well documented (Donnelly & Torres 2008, Cullins 8 et al. 2011), the benthic fauna is under-sampled, especially along the steep bathymetric gradients of the slope deeper no data available. than 800 m. The remote and perpetually ice-covered 5 Amundsen Sea is the least sampled area of the high na Antarctic. Given the circum-Antarctic distribution of most Oden. high latitude notothenioids (Eastman 1993), the fish fauna of mean min max the Amundsen Sea would be expected to resemble that of the East Antarctic zoogeographic province, especially the Weddell ) 2 and RVIB and Ross seas. Nevertheless, sampling in the Amundsen Sea has been sufficiently sparse that Andriashev (1987) indicated its affinity with a question mark when mapping zoogeographic imaged (m Area seafloor subdivisions of the Antarctic. ) Underwater photography has previously been used in the n Antarctic to document the abundance and ecology of fishes Nathaniel B. Palmer Seafloor in the Weddell and Lazarev seas (Ekau & Gutt 1991, Gutt images ( et al. 1994, Gutt & Ekau 1996), but, with the exception of the work of Yau et al. (2002) involving still and video cameras near South Georgia at depths to 1519 m, it 7.45has 38 532 never 61 985 been employed at slope depths. Here we present 93.05 84 106 277 801 information on the depth ranges and approximate towed (km) abundances of higher-level taxa, as well as some individual species, from the outer continental shelf to the lower continental slope of Marguerite Bay (MB) and the Amundsen Sea (AS). We also provide insights into the g December 2010 cruises of the RV biology of notothenioid and non-notothenioid species derived from our images. min max Distance SeaSled Materials and methods We conducted a photographic survey of sea floor (h:min) At depth communities in Marguerite Bay aboard the US Antarctic Program’s RV Nathaniel B. Palmer (early December 2010), and we surveyed select sites in the Amundsen Sea (late hthetowedvehicleSeaSleddurin W 8 End December) aboard the Swedish RVIB Oden (Table I). We obtained images of the sea floor communities using SeaSled (Singh et al. 2007), a towed vehicle with high-dynamic-range W cameras mounted side-by-side. A 150 w-sec strobe was 8 Begin mounted aft of the cameras to minimize backscatter. Every three seconds, slightly overlapping, paired high-resolution S (1.4 mpixel or 1360 x 1024 pixels) digital images recorded 8 End c. 10 m2 of the sea floor (typical range 2–19 m2). Onboard sensors included an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP; 1200 kHz Teledyne RD Instruments). The ADCP provided S 8 Begin real-time navigation data via a standard conductivity- temperature-depth (CTD) cable. The navigation data enabled the SeaSled pilots to maintain the vehicle 3 m above the substrate to balance the trade-off between maximizing area coverage and maintaining good colour characteristics. Additional environmental data for every image were recorded with a Seabird SBE-49 Fast CAT Data for localities sampled and photographic images obtained wit 16-Hz CTD and a Paroscientific depth sensor. We sampled in Marguerite Bay while the RV Nathaniel B. Marguerite Bay NBP-1NBP-2NBP-3NBP-4NBP-5 1 Dec 10NBP-6 2 Dec 10NBP-7 2 66.4440 Dec 10NBP-8 2 66.4098 Dec 66.3830 10Totals 3 66.4845 Dec 66.4836 10 4 71.3641 66.4900 DecAmundsen 66.4894 10 Sea 4 71.5025 66.6676 DecOden-1 66.5636 10 71.4747 5 71.5190 66.7413 DecOden-2 66.6841 10 71.5195 71.6107 66.9366Oden-3 66.8667 71.6447 5:19 71.8061 66.8713Oden-4 66.9702 71.7347 5:02 72.1048 24Oden-5 66.9416 Dec 71.9945 10 2:44 72.6509 26Oden-6 Dec 72.5129 10 469 4:14 72.6804 71.9128 27Totals Dec 72.3872 10 555 3:26 72.9793 28 71.9079 10:44 Dec 72.5196 10 552 72.1883 28 72.9591 1032 Dec 1391 115.1321 10 5:25 72.2235 29 72.1933 Dec 1534 117.0009 10 620 4:21 115.1437 1103 71.9841 72.2245 1306 118.9794 116.9897 71.9781 1313 71.9885 119.1352 381 119.0029 2:02 71.9792 1523 119.5810 1396 383 9.97 119.1267 5:26 120.0894 9.99 119.5823 2:26 6.1 120.0874 639 405 10.64 3:22 2282 590 0:43 23.46 10 8.88 808 660 3:20 727 440 9808 1631 13.24 627 10.77 8714 1942 5544 40 714 316 22 066 784 7074 1665 38 496 2007 0.7 32 11 403 27 140 422 na 2.89 56 8952 004 26 1.01 064 na 1.06 0.994 0.52 29 na 235 0.799 1.27 na 27 861 13 0.997 4154 054 0.797 na 1.530 6644 0.753 na 0.721 0.893 8094 1750 na 1.183 19 819 9327 4836 1.026 0.883 na 1.153 11 107 0.425 na 11 022 0.012 1.598 0.634 2646 1.586 8064 0.946 -0.132 0.854 0.561 0.659 0.923 0.504 0.124 0.838 0.642 0.657 0.967 0.501 0.875 0.661 0.571 Table I. Dive Date SeaSledPalmer Imaging depth (m)was underway and SeaSled was towed at ship speeds Water temp.