Marine Ecosystems under the Global Change in the Northwestern Pacific
A preliminary analysis on the polychaete fauna
Inna L. Alalykina and Viola Fischer
Results and Discussion
To date, 92 polychaete taxa belonging to 70 genera and 28 families and 3 indeterminate spe- cies have been identified. The most abundant families are the Spionidae, Opheliidae, Polynoidae, Ampharetidae and Cirratulidae. The most speciose family is the Sphaerodoridae with 10 species fol- lowed by the Maldanidae and Paraonidae with 8 and 7 species, respectively, Syllidae and Cirratulidae with 6 species each, Ampharetidae, Phyllodocidae, Polynoidae, Spionidae and Terebellidae with 5 species each. The remaining families are represented by 1–3 species. A total of 37 polychaete taxa were identified to species level, the other species taxa were identified to genus or family level. It is likely that some of the undetermined polychaete species belonging to the genera Sosane, Aphelo- chaeta, Chaetozone, Lacydonia, Sphaerodoridium, Sphaerodoropsis while others are new to science.
Among the identified species, 12 are new for the polychaete fauna of the Sea of Japan:Chaetozone cf. commonalis Blake, 1996, Gyptis hians Fauchald and Hancock, 1981, Macellicephala violacea (Levinsen, 1887), Anguillosyllis cf. capensis Day, 1963, Eusyllis tubicola Uschakov, 1950, Lanassa cf. nordenskjoldi Malmgren, 1866, Sagitella kowalewskii Wagner, 1872, Travisiopsis lanceolata Southern, 1910, Travisiopsis lobifera Levinsen, 1885, Sosane sp., Apistobranchus sp. and Lacydo- nia sp. Eight genera (Sosane, Gyptis, Anguillosyllis, Apistobranchus, Macellicephala, Lacydonia, Sagitella, Travisiopsis) have not been reported from the Sea of Japan before but were registered from other basins including deep-sea areas (Uschakov, 1972, 1982; Hilbig, 1994; Jirkov, 1994; Blake, 1996; Böggemann, 2009).
The present results show that the composition of Polychaeta in the deep sea of the Sea of Japan does not seem to differ at higher taxonomic level from that of other deep-sea regions world-wide (Schüller et al., 2009). Noteworthy is the spionid polychaete prevalence in abundance in our samples.
Recent studies have shown that the dominance of the Spionidae in number of individuals and some- times species is also a typical pattern observed in the Southern Ocean deep sea (Hilbig, 2001; Wilmsen and Schüller, 2011) and Pacific Ocean (Hilbig and Blake, 2006).
The highest number of species (84 species) was found at the shallow station B7-7 positioned on the continental slope in the central part of the investigated area. This station also yielded the highest number of specimens (5406). The lowest abundance (25 specimens) and number of species (3) was found at the abyssal plain station D1-4 (Fig. 1).
Species richness and diversity of Polychaeta strongly decreased with depth: between ~450–550 m 84 species were found, between ~1000–1500 m – 36 species, between ~2500–2700 m – 14 species and at ≥3300 m – 8 species (Figs. 1, 2). At abyssal depths greater than 3300 m the number of spe- cies per station ranged from 3 to 6. In comparison a total of 45 species were found at bathyal depths between 1000–3431 m. This result is similar to what Levenstein (1969) reported from the deep sea of the Sea of Japan.
The diversity indices indicate that the Sea of Japan continental slope (st. B7-7 and B6-7) is the area of highest polychaete diversity among all stations analyzed (Fig. 2). Shannon diversities (H′) were between 0.3 and 2.8 and Margalef diversities (d) varied from 0.46 to 9.66 between stations.
The lowest diversity and evenness (J′) were found for stations B4-8 and C3-4 where the polychaete community was clearly dominated by the spionid Laonice sp. In contrast, station D1-4 with the lowest number of species (3) showed the highest evenness with J′=0.8 due to the presence of only few indi- viduals of each species at this station.
A preliminary analysis on the polychaete fauna
Fig. 1. Numbers of polychaete individuals and species at C-EBS stations ordered by transects and depth.
Fig. 2. Shannon diversity (based on loge) and Pielou’s evenness for Polychaeta sampled in the north-western part of the Sea of Japan.
Inna L. Alalykina and Viola Fischer
For polychaetes Shannon diversities (based on loge) are commonly reported between 1.9 and 3.5 with evenness values above J′=0.7 due to the findings of many rare species (e.g., Hilbig and Blake, 2006; Hilbig et al., 2006; Schüller et al., 2009). These values are higher than we have observed. How- ever, all authors described a decrease in polychaete diversity with depth. High diversity of the slope stations might therefore be evidence for the presence of faunal elements from both shelf and deep-sea communities (Brandt et al., 2007).
In this study the most widely distributed species were Terebellides sp., Ampharete sp., Laonice sp., Chaetozone sp. 1, Aglaophamus malmgreni (Theel, 1879), Flabelligera affinisSars, 1829. They were found at 6–9 stations. More than half of all species (50 species or 53%) were sampled at one station only (B7-7), positioned on the continental slope at depths around 500 m.
These results are similar to data reported by Wilmsen and Schüller (2011) from the Antarctic and Subantarctic waters where 52% species were limited to one station. Recent works (Hessler and Jumars, 1974; Glover et al., 2001, 2002) show that the patchiness is a common feature for deep-sea polychaetes worldwide in which species are often only represented in far-flung accumu- lations. Therefore, the lack of a species in samples does not necessarily rule out its occurrence in the respective area, but might result from undersampling or too small sample sizes (Wilmsen and Schüller, 2011).
In general, analyses of geographical distribution patterns indicate that many deep-sea poly- chaetes have wide distributional ranges at depths below 2000 m (Hilbig, 2004; Hilbig et al., 2006;
Méndez, 2007; Wilmsen and Schüller, 2011). According to our data, among 17 species of Poly- chaeta found in depths below 2000 m 6 species (Chaetozone cf. setosa Malmgren, 1867, Har- mothoe impar impar (Johnston, 1839), Polydora cornuta Bosc, 1802, Scalibregma inflatumRathke, 1843, Flabelligera affinis, Aglaophamus malmgreni) are widely distributed worldwide, 10 species identified to genus level and only Harmothoe derjugini is a truly endemic deep-sea species of the Sea of Japan.
Preliminary analyses of the polychaete fauna of the Sea of Japan show that the upper bathyal is an area of higher species richness than the abyssal plain. The increased richness and diversity here could be explained by the overlapping with the shallower (and richer) species complex of the shelf.
More than half of all species were sampled at one shallowest slope station only in this study. About 30% polychaete species found in the Sea of Japan at depths below 2000 m are characterized by wide-spread species.
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Marine Ecosystems under the Global Change in the Northwestern Pacific