Structure and distribution of fish assemblages at Burdwood Bank, the first Sub-Antarctic Marine Protected Area ?Namuncurá? in Argentina (Southwestern Atlantic Ocean)

DELPIANI, S.M.; BRUNO, D; VAZQUEZ, M.; LLOMPART, F.; DELPIANI, G.; FERNÁNDEZ, D. A. ; ROSSO, J. J. ; MABRAGAÑA, E.; DÍAZ DE ASTARLOA, J. M.

POLAR BIOLOGY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2020

0722-4060

The first non-coastal Sub-Antarctic Marine Protected Area (Namuncurá) inArgentina was created in 2013, at Burdwood Bank (MPAN-BB), an underseaplateau located about 200 km south from Malvinas/Falkland Islands, SW AtlanticOcean. The main contribution of this work was to explore fish speciescomposition and the structure of fish assemblages in three different zones of theMPAN-BB with different conservation strategies and different surrounding areas.Twenty-two fishing trawls were performed using a demersal bottom trawl pilotnet at depths between 71 and 608 m. A total of 667 fish belonging to 30 specieswere collected in the surveyed area. The richest family in terms of speciesnumber was Nototheniidae (seven species), followed by Macrouridae, Myxinidaeand Zoarcidae (four species each), then Moridae and Arhynchobatidae (threespecies each), and finally Muraenolepididae and Psychrolutidae (two specieseach). The remaining families were represented by a single species. Threesignificantly different fish assemblages were detected. These distinctassemblages were largely circumscribed at the plateau, the shelf-break slope, andthe area west of the BB. The results showed that fish diversity in the MPAN-BBis relatively high constituting ~ 10% of the fish composition reported for the antic sector of the Magellanic Province. The present data suggest that fishesare an important component of the benthic community planned to be protected bythe implementation of the MPAN-BB. These findings have importantimplications for habitat preservation and threatened species conservation.