Elsner, Nikolaus O., Malyutina, Marina V., Golovan, Olga A., Brenke, Nils, Riehl, Torben and Brandt, Angelika (2015) Deep down: Isopod biodiversity of the Kuril–Kamchatka abyssal area including a comparison with data of previous expeditions of the RV Vityaz. Deep-Sea Research Part II-Topical Studies in Oceanography, 111 . pp. 210-219. DOI 10.1016/j.dsr2.2014.08.007.

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Abstract

This study focusses on the isopod biodiversity in the abyssal area southeast of the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench. The KuramBio (Kuril–Kamchatka Biodiversity Studies) expedition in summer 2012 collected altogether 10,169 isopods from 21 C-EBS hauls at 12 stations, belonging to 19 families, 73 genera and 207 species from the depth range between 4830 and 5780 m. Munnopsidae and Desmosomatidae were the most abundant and species-rich families, Eurycope (Munnopsidae) and Macrostylis (Macrostylidae) the most abundant genera. An nMDS plot on the basis of the Cosine similarity index reveals no clear pattern and all hauls to be different from each other. We compared our data with 12 stations from the same depth range sampled by the Russian RV Vityaz about 50 years ago and were able to identify several species collected by the RV Vityaz. The identified isopod species belonged to the families Munnopsidae, Macrostylidae, Haploniscidae, Desmosomatidae, Ischnomesidae and Nannoniscidae. Of the 333 individuals collected by the RV Vityaz, Haploniscidae and Munnopsidae were the most abundant families. Desmosomatidae were only represented by <1% of the isopod individuals. However, the rarefaction curves of both the KuramBio and the Vityaz samples are not approaching an asymptote, indicating that even after repeated sampling just a part of the local fauna has been recorded so far.

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