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Composition and Distribution of Epibenthic and Demersal Assemblages in Mauritanian Deep-Waters

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Deep-Sea Ecosystems Off Mauritania

Abstract

Quantitative data were collected with a 3.5 m beam-trawl gear at 25 stations along five latitudinal transects , covering five bathymetric strata from 100 to 2000 m depth. More than 500 species belonging to 35 epibenthic high-range taxa are present in Mauritanian deep-sea bottom s. Pisces , Decapoda and Polychaeta , represented by 111, 80 and 56 species, respectively, constituted the richest groups, being the first two collected at all stations. Decapoda were dominant in abundance (55.8% of the total), although in biomass they shared their dominance with Actinopterygii and Holothuroidea (29.4, and 26.0%, respectively). Although suspension feeders were represented by 131 species (25.7%), they only accounted for 9% of the abundance and 1% of biomass (small-sized species). Low diversity indices varied widely between localities but showed no latitudinal pattern . Richness and densities decreased with increasing depth, a strongly marked trend in the case of densities, which peaked on the deep shelf and upper slope (150–300 m), while the biomass remain standing showing only minimum values at 500 m depth. Depth seems to be the strongest factor determining the structure and composition of the four main epibenthic assemblages identified on the deep shelf (150 m), upper slope (300–550 m), middle slope (1000 m) and deep slope (1600 m). The two shallowest assemblages were clearly separated from the deeper ones and were typified by different decapods and fish species , while the two deepest assemblages were characterized by echinoderms and fishes.

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Acknowledgements

We want to express our sincere gratitude to our colleagues Susana Soto, Marta Gil, Belén Calero and Lourdes Fernández-Peralta for their support in identifying crustaceans , hydrozoans , echinoderms and fishes. We are also grateful to our friend and colleague, geologist Luis Miguel Agudo, for preparing the maps. We want to express our gratitude to our colleagues Marcos González, Matusa Amoedo, Moncho García and Sidi Mohamed, for their rigorous and enthusiastic work with the beam-trawl samples on-board Vizconde de Eza . This paper could not have been prepared without their contribution.

We also thank reviewers, Dr Robert S. Carney, from the Louisiana State University (USA) and Dr Lenaick Menot from the IFREMER of Plouzané (France), for their insightful comments and suggestions.

This work was undertaken within the framework of the EcoAfrik project and has been partially funded by the MAVA Fondation pour la Nature (MAVA contract 12/87 AO C4/2012). This is ECOAFRIK publication number 14.

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  1. Universidade de Vigo, Campus Lagoas-Marcosende, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    Sara Castillo & Fran Ramil

  2. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Subida a Radio Faro, 50-52, 36390, Vigo, Spain

    Sara Castillo & Ana Ramos

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  1. Sara Castillo
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  2. Fran Ramil
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Correspondence to Sara Castillo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Español de Oceanografía , Vigo, Spain

    Ana Ramos

  2. Facultade de Ciencias do Mar, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, Spain

    Fran Ramil

  3. Instituto Español de Oceanografía , Madrid, Spain

    José Luis Sanz

Annexe

Annexe

Annexe 8.1 Taxonomic list of epibenthic invertebrates and fish species collected with a beam˗trawl during Maurit-0911 and Maurit-1011 surveys (only the taxonomic groups currently identified to specific level are included).
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Castillo, S., Ramil, F., Ramos, A. (2017). Composition and Distribution of Epibenthic and Demersal Assemblages in Mauritanian Deep-Waters. In: Ramos, A., Ramil, F., Sanz, J. (eds) Deep-Sea Ecosystems Off Mauritania. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1023-5_8

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