Biodiversity Data Journal :
Data Paper (Biosciences)
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Corresponding author: Patricia Esquete (pesquete@ua.pt)
Academic editor: Luis Ernesto Bezerra
Received: 26 Aug 2020 | Accepted: 21 Sep 2020 | Published: 28 Sep 2020
© 2020 Patricia Esquete, Cristian Aldea
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:
Esquete P, Aldea C (2020) Benthic Peracarids (Crustacea) from an unexplored area of Patagonian channels and Fjords. Biodiversity Data Journal 8: e58013. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e58013
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The intricate geomorphology of the coastline in the Chilean Channels and Fjords region, together with the freshwater inputs from the ice fields provide the area with very unique ecological characteristics and a variety of habitats that favour great marine biodiversity. However, although Chilean Patagonia has been the focus of several expeditions and ecological surveys, the greatest emphasis has been either on the populated coasts of the Beagle Channel and the Straits of Magellan to the south or the area to the north of Golfo de Penas, leaving vast areas that remain largely unexplored. This leads to a latitudinal gap in the faunistic information and hinders zoogeographic studies to assess biogeographical connections along the eastern coasts of the Pacific. Peracarida is a taxonomic group that provides an excellent model for such studies because of their high abundance and biodiversity, benthic habits, small size and limited dispersal capacity.
A dataset providing the first and only records of the benthic Peracarida between the latitudes 48–51.5°S of the Pacific coast of Chile is presented here, hence closing a geospatial gap for the study of the biogeographical connections of the Peracarida along the Eastern Pacific coast. The dataset comprises a total of 141 georeferenced records of 60 sublittoral species of Tanaidacea, Isopoda and Amphipoda. This and other studies reveal that the coastal fauna of the region follow a latitudinal distribution pattern at a larger scale and nested assemblages inside the channels and fjords that can be regarded as a consequence of the more restrictive conditions in the inner parts. In the present scenario of global warming that is expected to affect particularly polar and subpolar regions, the present dataset serves as a reference for the distribution patterns of benthic organisms with low dispersal capacity.
estuary, fragmentation, nestedness, Magellan region, Pacific Ocean, Tanaidacea, Isopoda, Amphipoda
The Patagonian Channels and Fjords constitute one of the largest estuarine systems of the world, extending along around 84,000 km of coastline (
While the southern channels and fjords of the Magellan Region have been the focus of several expeditions and ecological surveys, the greatest emphasis has been on the populated coasts of the Beagle Channel and the Straits of Magellan (
The superorder Peracarida is one of the most abundant and diverse taxa in the marine benthos (
The present dataset includes records of Peracarida along four degrees of latitude where the underwater biodiversity remained unexplored. It provides data that allow us to link the biogeography of the southern Patagonian coast with the rest of the Eastern Pacific. Additionally, the present work contributes to the knowledge of the biodiversity of the Magellan Region. All in all, the relevance of the present dataset lies in three main factors:
The potential of the usage of this dataset is exemplified here with nestedness analysis. It describes the species composition patterns within a continental biota and in isolated areas such as fragmented habitats and islands (
Nestedness analysis was performed following
Peracarida of Bernardo O’Higgins National Park (S Chile)
The Bernardo O´Higgins National Park (BONP) is the largest protected area in the Southern Hemisphere with 3,525,901 hectares; its area includes the continental and archipelagic areas which extend from 47°55'S to 51°37'S.
Sampling was performed as part of an exploratory study of the biodiversity of Bernardo O’Higgins National Park (henceforward BONP, Fig.
The rocky sublittoral bottoms of the Channels and Fjords of the BONP were sampled between January and March 2010, during two cruises on board the vessel MV Nueva Galicia with the objective of characterising and mapping the benthic communities.
A total of 23 sites were sampled by SCUBA divers (Fig.
The records of species and their respective geographical positions of the sites were entered into a spreadsheet structured with the Darwin Core Standard (
The coast of channels and fjords of the South East Pacific along three degrees of latitude.
-51.521 and -48.675 Latitude; -75.392 and -73.251 Longitude.
The Peracarida identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level.
Rank | Scientific Name |
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phylum | Arthropoda |
subphylum | Crustacea |
class | Malacostraca |
order | Amphipoda |
family | Amphilochidae |
family | Ampithoidae |
family | Aoridae |
family | Atylidae |
family | Calliopiidae |
family | Colomastigidae |
family | Corophiidae |
family | Dexaminidae |
family | Eusiridae |
family | Hyalidae |
family | Iphimediidae |
family | Ischyroceridae |
family | Leptocheliidae |
family | Leucothoidae |
family | Liljeborgiidae |
family | Lysianassidae |
family | Pardaliscidae |
family | Photidae |
family | Phoxocephalidae |
family | Pontogeneiidae |
family | Stegocephalidae |
family | Stenothoidae |
family | Synopiidae |
family | Talitridae |
family | Tryphosidae |
family | Uristidae |
order | Isopoda |
family | Chaetiliidae |
family | Janiridae |
family | Spaheromatidae |
family | Stenetriidae |
order | Tanaidacea |
family | Nototaidae |
family | Tanaididae |
2010-01-26 through 2010-03-24
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0 Licence
A total of 60 peracarid species were identified in the area, making up a total of 141 georeferenced records (
Column label | Column description |
---|---|
id | stable identifier assigned by GBIF |
institutionCode | code for the institution the record belongs to |
collectionCode | code of the physical collection within the institution |
basisOfRecord | observation type |
occurrenceID | unique identifier of the occurrence |
recordedBy | name of the person responsible for the record |
individualCount | number of specimens |
preparations | preservation/storage method |
eventDate | date of the event |
catalogNumber | identifier within the physical collection |
scientificNameAuthorship | authorship information for the scientific name formatted according to the conventions of the applicable nomenclaturalCode |
geodeticDatum | the ellipsoid, geodetic datum or spatial reference system (SRS) upon which the geographic coordinates given are based |
habitat | habitat of the occurrence |
samplingProtocol | collection methods |
countryCode | code of the country of the occurrence location |
stateProvince | province and region of the occurrence location |
county | county or commune of the occurrence location |
locality | locality of the occurrence location |
decimalLatitude | latitude in decimal degrees for the occurrence location |
decimalLongitude | longitude in decimal degrees for the occurrence location |
verbatimCoordinateSystem | coordinate system as originally indicated |
verbatimSRS | spatial reference system as originally indicated |
identificationQualifier | identification qualifier for the taxon |
identifiedBy | name of the person/s who identified the occurrence |
dateIdentified | date when the occurrence was identified |
scientificName | scientific name of the lowest taxonomic level attained for the occurrence. If species level, full scientific name, with authorship and date information |
kingdom | kingdom of the occurrence |
phylum | phylum of the occurrence |
class | class of the occurrence |
order | order of the occurrence |
family | family of the occurrence |
genus | genus of the occurrence |
specificEpithet | species name of the occurrence |
taxonRank | lowest taxon rank of identification of the occurrence |
verbatimLatitude | verbatim original latitude of the Location |
verbatimLongitude | verbatim original longitude of the Location |
country | country of the occurrence |
coordinateUncertaintyInMetres | horizontal distance (in metres) from the given decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude describing the smallest circle containing the whole of the Location |
The results showed that the Peracarida of the BONP presented a nested pattern, with a larger number of species in the outermost part of the channels and subsets of those in the innermost. The temperature of the matrix was 20.762°C; p < 0.01 (Fig.
Analysis of nestedness of peracarids of the BONP. Species presence is marked with a grey square, absence with white. The lines of perfect order (minimum temperature) are indicated in the matrix. Vertical axis: sampling sites (St), number of species in brackets. Horizontal axis: Species found, with the number of sites where the species was found in brackets.
This study widens the known distribution limit of several species previously recorded in Patagonia and the Southern Ocean (compiled in
Generally, species distribution patterns observed at the present time are the result of several ecological, evolutionary and biological processes. Given that nested patterns can be the result of extinction and/or colonisation processes (
Nested patterns have been found previously in the marine fauna of the region, generally consistent with the latitudinal gradient: fish parasite species (
The combination of the results presented here and those of the mentioned previous studies seems to indicate that, whereas at a larger scale, there are clear latitudinal patterns in the distribution of the marine species along the southeast Pacific coasts, the distribution on a finer scale responds to more specific ecological preferences of the species and the more extreme environmental conditions in the inner part of channels and fjords.
This dataset compiles the first and only records of the benthic Peracarida in the channels and fjords of the Pacific coast of Chile between the 48–51.5°S, hence closing a latitudinal gap for the study of the biogeographical connections of the group along the Eastern Pacific coast. In the present scenario of global warming that is expected to affect particularly polar and subpolar regions, the present dataset serves as a reference for the distribution patterns of benthic organisms with low dispersal capacity.
P. Esquete is funded by national funds (OE), through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of 29 August 2016, changed by Law 57/2017, of 19 July 2017. Thanks are due to FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM (UIDP/50017/2020+UIDB/50017/2020) through national funds. C. Aldea acknowledges the contribution of the project INNOVA 08CTU01-20 (developed by CEQUA Foundation and Chilean National Forest Corporation – CONAF) and supported by the Chilean Production Development Corporation (CORFO) and the programme VRIP-UMAG PR-06-CRN -18 (Diversity of molluscs and benthic crustaceans in the Straits of Magellan: biogeography, ordering and comparative endemism), supported by Direction of Research UMAG.
C.A. contributed to sampling planning, design and execution. P.E. performed the taxonomic identification of the specimens. Both authors collaborated on data analysis and manuscript preparation.