BIOPAPUA Expedition Highlighting Deep-Sea Benthic Biodiversity of Papua New- Guinea

Biopapua Expedition – Progress report MUSÉUM NATIONAL D'HISTOIRE NATURELLE 57 rue Cuvier 75005 PARIS‐ France BIOPAPUA Expedition Highlighting deep-sea benthic Biodiversity of Papua New- Guinea Submitted by: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) Represented by (co‐PI): Dr Sarah Samadi (Researcher, IRD) Dr Philippe Bouchet (Professor, MNHN) Dr Laure Corbari (Research associate, MNHN) 1 Biopapua Expedition – Progress report Contents Foreword 3 1‐ Our understanding of deep‐sea biodiversity of PNG 4 2 ‐ Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos program 5 3‐ Biopapua Expedition 7 4‐ Collection management 15 5‐ Preliminary results 17 6‐ Outreach and publications 23 7‐ Appendices 26 Appendix 1 27 NRI, note n°. 302/2010 on 26th march, 2010, acceptance of Biopapua reseach programme Appendix 2 28 Biopapua cruise Report, submitted by Ralph MANA (UPNG) A Report Submitted to School of Natural and Physical Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea Appendix 3 39 Chan, T.Y (2012) A new genus of deep‐sea solenocerid shrimp (Crustacea: Decapoda: Penaeoidea) from the Papua New Guinea. Journal of Crustacean Biology, 32(3), 489‐495. Appendix 4 47 Pante E, Corbari L., Thubaut J., Chan TY, Mana R., Boisselier MC, Bouchet P., Samadi S. (In Press). Exploration of the deep‐sea fauna of Papua New Guinea. Oceanography Appendix 5 60 Richer de Forges B. & Corbari L. (2012) A new species of Oxypleurodon Miers, 1886 (Crustacea Brachyura, Majoidea) from the Bismark Sea, Papua New Guinea. Zootaxa. 3320: 56–60 Appendix 6 66 Taxonomic list: Specimens in MNHN and Taiwan collections 2 Biopapua Expedition – Progress report Foreword Biopapua cruise was a MNHN/IRD deep‐sea cruise in partnership with the School of Natural and Physical Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea. According to the proposal of Marine scientific research submitted to National Research Institute of PNG (acceptance decision note n°. 302/2010 on 26th march, 2010 ; see Appendix 1), the present document represents the mid‐progress report of Biopapua Cruise. It provodes the full description of the Biopapua expedition (September‐October 2010) and exposes first scientific results. We wish also to dedicate this feature to Christian Késiano Fitialeata, who tragically passed away during the first leg of BioPapua. Christian has been a crew member on the RV Alis for many years, and has been instrumental in the success of many TDSB cruises. 3 Biopapua Expedition – Progress report 1‐ Our understanding of deep‐sea biodiversity of PNG Historical context The island of New Guinea has a privileged place in the heart of biologists. Biodiversity studies in New Guinea and its satellite islands have helped shape some of the pillars of evolutionary biology and ecological theory. In the late 1850s, New Guinea was the easternmost of Alfred Wallace’s destinations during his exploration of the Malay Archipelago, and his comparative observations nurtured his theories on island biogeography and the mechanisms promoting evolution (Wallace, 1869; 1876). In the 1920s, ornithologist Ernst Mayr accumulated data on New Guinea birds that would later appear in his “Systematics and the origin of species,” a landmark in the development of the modern synthesis (Mayr, 1942). Similarly, data from New Guinean ant diversity found their place in MacArthur and Wilson’s theory of island biogeography (MacArthur and Wilson, 1967). Contrasting with this knowledge on the terrestrial ecosystems is the surprising lack of information on the deep‐sea ecosystems skirting the coasts of New Guinea and its satellite islands. Among the famous deep‐sea expedition of XIXe century, we can mention the Challenger expedition and the Dutch Siboga expedition but without an extensive sampling off PNG coasts. In fact, of the “historical” exploring expeditions, only the Danish Galathea (1950‐52) and the Russian Vityaz expeditions have taken biological benthic samples in the region, namely the hadal part of the New Britain Trench in the Solomon Sea (Belyaev 1972). The deep‐sea environments of Papua New Guinea PNG is situated in one of the most geologically active regions in the world, where all possible types of plate boundaries can be observed (Tregoning et al., 2000). Most of the scientific exploration done to date in the PNG region stemmed from geological research. The strong tectonic activity found in PNG is particularly conducive to hydrothermal venting, which was first revealed in the mid to late 1980s (Both et al., 1986; Tufar 1990; Lisitsyn et al., 1993). A series of international research efforts have followed since then, with cruises involving American, Canadian, Australian, Japanese, Russian, German, Austrian and French teams (Auzende et al., 2000, and references therein). These efforts mostly focused on the Pacmanus and Vienna Woods vent fields in the Bismarck Sea, and on Franklin Seamount in the Solomon Sea. Fig. 1: Tectonic context of PNG. 4 Biopapua Expedition – Progress report The geological complexity and the rapidity of change observed in the area makes the region of particular biogeographic interest, both in terms of biological colonization and diversity of habitats (hydrothermal vent fields, river sedimentary cones, seamounts, slopes and canyons, sedimentary plains...). The Bismarck and Solomon Seas host many underwater features such as seamounts, of which only a very few (e.g. Franklin and Edison Seamounts) have been sampled, mapped, or even visited. Significant efforts for describing the hydrothermal vent‐endemic fauna have been made (e.g. Desbruyères et al., 2006 and references therein) but the general deep benthic fauna is yet to be described. For example, the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) database (Vanden Berghe, 2007; Edward Vanden Berghe personal communication) contains information on 34 species of deep‐water crustaceans, 30 of which are vent‐endemic (a meager inventory, the benthic surface of the PNG EEZ totaling over 2 million km2 below a 100 m depth). The current body of knowledge on New Guinean deep‐sea benthic fauna comes almost exclusively from the study of highly‐specialized hydrothermal vent animals, which distribution strictly depends on the location of vent fields. Hydrothermal vent animals might therefore not be good models to represent the biology of deep New Guinean fauna. Data on other benthic groups, however, are sorely lacking, and do not allow us to understand patterns of faunal connectivity across the deep waters of the western Pacific Ocean at this time. 2‐ The Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos program or “Filling the gap in our knowledge of Deep‐ Sea Biodiversity” Combine deep‐sea and tropics: margins of tropical islands and seamounts represent a major frontier in marine biodiversity exploration. The coral reefs of the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans are known to be hotspots of species diversity, but none knows whether this is true also in deeper water. Tropical islands and seamounts have highly heterogeneous bottom types, many still uncharted – with resulting sampling challenges –, but they are also geographically remote. All these combine in making these benthic communities among the least sampled and least studied in the world. The core aim of this Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos programme is therefore to fill this knowledge gap. Exploring the Papua New Guinea (PNG) seas represent, in this context, the main challenge of the BIOPAPUA cruise. The deep benthos of tropical seas represents one of the last frontiers of marine biodiversity, and the explorations led by the National Museum of Natural Biopapua History of Paris confirms the Indo‐Pacific as a major reservoir of unknown forms of life in all taxonomic groups. Figure 2 : Main exploration areas of TDSB expeditions. PNG area (with Biopapua cruise) was obvious to fill in the gap in our sampling effort all around IndoPacific Ocean. 5 Biopapua Expedition – Progress report However, unlike most other tropical biological communities, deep‐sea benthos of this area has been generally neglected by most zoologists and oceanographers. The aim of the Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos research programme has therefore been to fill this knowledge gap (Bouchet et al., 2008). “Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos” is not a classical research program. We use it as an umbrella to describe a loose association of individuals, partnerships and expeditions, the goals of which are pursued by a three‐tiered organization: 1) A small core group of experienced scientists (mainly from MNHN‐Paris) and seamen mounts the expeditions and conducts the field work, using conventional (research) or unconventional (fishing) vessels, and low‐tech approaches – dredging and trawling. We rely extensively on R/V Alis, a Nouméa‐based, 27 meters long scientific trawler that is equipped with a multi‐beam echosounder and that has excellent manoeuvrability as well as skilled personnel to work on uncharted and difficult slopes. 2) On board, the collections made are sorted to the appropriate levels: phylum (e.g., Brachiopoda, Porifera, Bryozoa), class (e.g., Hydrozoa, Tunicata, Asterida), order (e.g., Tanaidacea, Antipatharia) or family (in the case of fishes, molluscs and decapod crustaceans). They are then distributed for study to an international network of systematists. 3) More than 200 scientists from all over the world have been involved in the taxonomic description of species collected by the Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos programme, some as visiting curators to MNHN. The research results are published in short articles or monographic revisions in relevant taxonomical journals as well as in Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos, a series of monographs published by MNHN. In addition to this series, numerous other scientific papers are published in regular taxonomic journals. Altogether, over 3,000 new species have been discovered, described and named based on the Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos programme. The Tropical Deep‐Sea Benthos expeditions often represent the first‐ever exploration of developing countries and remote areas (e.g. Tonga, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Philippines) because of their robustness and low technicity. These expeditions provide a very large amount of unique data to two international networks: the Census of Marine Life and the Barcoding of Life, of which MNHN has the status of "leading lab".

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