Sponges from a submarine canyon of the Argentine Sea.

BERTOLINO M.; SCHEJTER L.; CALCINAI B.; CERRANO C.; BREMEC C.

Porifera Research: Biodiversity, Innovation and Sustainability

Año: 2007; p. 189 - 201

During an assessment research cruise of the Patagonian scallop Zygochlamys patagonica (King and Broderip, 1832) a submarine canyon was discovered using a multibeam SIMRAD EM1002 sonar. The canyon is positioned at 43º35’S and 59º33’W, close to the southern commercial scallop beds, in the Argentine Sea. The existence of submarine canyons on the continental shelf of Argentina was already known, but their edaphic and biotic conditions are still unstudied. A sample of the benthic community was collected at the “head” of the canyon at 360 m depth. In total nine species of demosponges were identified; two of them represent new record for the Argentine Sea and two are new for science.