Seamount Ecology

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Seamount Ecology
Karen Stocks and Paul Hart San Diego
Supercomputer Center kstocks_at_sdsc.edu
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Why Seamounts are Interesting
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Benthic Community different species, high
biomass (why?)
? Typical deep seafloor courtesy F. Grassle
Seamount ? (not necessarily typical!) http//ocea
nexplorer.noaa.gov/
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Pelagic Community

• Attractors for mobile mammals, tuna, turtles,
  seabirds
• Differences in abundances of zooplankton, nekton

TOPP Program
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Long Lived species

• This spicule is from a sponge 6 feet tall and 440
  years old. ?
• - Extremely old corals and crinoids also found.
• - Long-lived, slow growing fishes

Images and age estimates from B. Richer de Forges
and collaborators
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Unusual BiogeographyParin et al. 1997
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THE   LIVING FOSSILS  OF THE NORFOLK RIDGE
SEAMOUNTS courtesy of Richer de Forges et al.
A large number of species from the Norfolk Ridge
Seamounts are ARCHAICS
Brachiopods
Crinoids of the 14 genera of New Caledonia, 8
are  living fossils  related to mesozoic fauna
Neoancistrocrania norfolki
Gymnocrinus richeri
Gastropods Pleurotomariidae 4 species in New
Caledonia
Caledonicrinus vaubani
Perotrochus boucheti
Perotrochus caledonicus
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Endemism

• Species found in one restricted location (in this
  case a single seamount or seamount chain) and
  nowhere else in the ocean

Apparent endemism species that have to date
been found in one restricted location and nowhere
else in the ocean...yet
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Seamount Endemism

• 1987 global review by Wilson and Kaufmann.
  100 seamounts, 1000 species
• 12-15 endemic

• Since then, several high reports (gt1000 more spp)
• 35 Tasmanian seamounts (Koslow et al.)
• 31 Lord Howe seamounts (Richer de Forges et
  al. 2000)
• 36 Norfolk Ridge seamounts (Richer de Forges
  et al. 2000)
• 44 (fish), 52 (invertebrates) Nazca and
  Sala-y-Gomez (Parin et al. 1997)

• But others low
• 12 global fish review (Froese and Sampang
  2004)
• 9 (fish) from Great Meteor (Fock et al.)
• 5 (fish) from Hawaiian chain (Stocks, in prep)

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Seamounts as Model Systems

• What conditions promote and maintain endemism?
• Do seamounts act as
• centers of speciation?
• refugia for relict populations?
• stepping-stones for trans-oceanic dispersal?

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What are the large-scale patterns, and what
drives them?

• What are the gradients in diversity, endemism,
  and community composition and what drives them
  (productivity, current regimes, isolation)
• ? The physical, geological, chemical conditions
  are key to understanding the biological
  communities

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Scope for Interdisciplinary research

• 1 We need your data and interpretation to
  understand the communities
• As formal collaborations
• And as less formal advising

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Scope for Interdisciplinary research

• 2 Work together to expand sampling
• Interdisciplinary cruises
• Adding a biologist to a geological cruise and
  vice-versa
• Developing standard minimal sampling protocols
• Sharing samples of broad interest (e.g. bottom
  imagery)

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Biological Sampling to Date
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Number of Species Observations from Global
Seamounts -gt almost all seamounts are undersampled
Missing
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Depth Bias
All Seamounts (14,300) from Kitchingman and Lai
2004
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Latitude Bias
All Seamounts (14,300) from Kitchingman and Lai
2004
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Active Research
ISI publications on seamount biology/ecology as
of total. From Brewin et al. in review
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Scope for Interdisciplinary research

• 3 Integrated Data Systems

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SeamountsOnline seamounts.sdsc.edu
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Vema
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New Prototype
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Thank You

• Note all uncredited images are courtesy of NOAA
  Ocean Explorer http//www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/