ARPHA Conference Abstracts : Conference Abstract
|
Corresponding author: Lyubomir A Kenderov (lubomir.kenderov@gmail.com)
Received: 11 Sep 2019 | Published: 11 Sep 2019
© 2019 Lyubomir Kenderov, Vesela Evtimova, Plamen Mitov, Apostol Apostolov, Eliza Uzunova, Marian Kenderov
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Kenderov LA, Evtimova VV, Mitov PG, Apostolov AM, Uzunova EP, Kenderov MA (2019) New data on the taxonomic composition of macroinvertebrates in marine habitats from the Livingston Island, Antarctica. ARPHA Conference Abstracts 2: e46493. https://doi.org/10.3897/aca.2.e46493
|
|
Antarctic marine organisms are characterised by a significant level of endemism. This is due to geological, climatological and oceanographic reasons, such as the break-up of Antarctida from Gondwana during the Cretaceous; the formation of a circumpolar current; the extremely low water temperatures (close to freezing); the short summer seasons. The South Shetland Islands (West Antarctic Peninsula) are one of 29 known biogeographic areas in the Southern Hemisphere (
The aim of this study is to present the first Bulgarian results on the taxonomic composition of marine macroinvertebrates from the South Bay, Livingston Island. The samples were collected during the XXVIIth Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition (2018–2019 austral summer). Various sites in four areas were sampled: the coastal zone in front of the Bulgarian Polar Base (Costa Bulgara); a small bay south of Cape Hesperides (Reservnoto port); Johnsons Dock Bay near the Spanish research station and Walker Bay near Hannah Point. Samples were collected mainly through bottom trawling at depths of 2 to 20 meters on different types of bottom substrates using Zodiac boats. A total of 11 macrozoobenthos samples were collected.
Our preliminary results show that the main macrozoobenthic species are well known in the seawaters of the South Shetlands and usually they have a circumpolar distribution. At the site with soft muddy bottoms (Johnsons Dock Bay), the corrugated ribbon worm Parborlasia corrugatus (McIntosh, 1876) (order Heteronemertea, class Pilidiophora, phylum Nemertea) as well as ascidians (order Phlebobranchia, class Ascidiacea, phylum Chordata) had the highest biomass. The most abundant in the Johnsons Dock Bay were the Antarctic bivalve Aequiyoldia eightsii (Jay, 1839) (order Nuculanida, class Bivalvia, phylum Mollusca); the scale worm Barrukia cristata (Willey, 1902) and the catworm Aglaophamus trissophyllus (Grube, 1877) (both of order Phyllodocida, class Polychaeta, phyllum Annelida). The seroid isopod Spinoserolis beddardi (Calman, 1920) (order Isopoda, class Malacostraca, phyllum Arthropoda) dominated in the muddy / sandy bottom of Hannah Point. The habitats of the rocky bottom (Costa Bulgara) were inhabited mainly by crustaceans (order Aphipoda, class Malacostraca, phyllum Arthropoda) and gastropods (phylum Mollusca). In the tidal zone of this habitat (0–2m), the predominant species was the Antarctic limplet Nacella concinna (Strebel, 1908) (order Patellogastropoda, class Gastropoda, phylum Mollusca).
Maritime Antarctica, macrozoobenthos, meiobenthos, Parborlasia corrugatus, Barrukia cristata, Nacella concinna, Aequiyoldia eightsii
Lyubomir Angelov Kenderov
Vth International Congress on Biodiversity: „Taxonomy, Speciation and Euro-Mediterranean Biodiversity“
The authors thank the people that supported us in the field – Base commander Mr. Y. Todorov and boatman Pavel Vratchev. We are grateful to all the members of the XXVIIth Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition, and personally to the base commander Y. Yordanov and the team leader prof. Ch. Pimpirev.
This study was supported through Project # 80-10-244/31.08.2018, funded by the Polar Research Fund and managed by Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
L.K. - field research, identification of higher crustaceans and writing the abstract; V.E. - writing the abstract; P.M. - identification of macroinvertebrates; A.A. - writing the abstract; E. U - writing the abstract; M.K. - laboratory analysis and sample processing.
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.