Deep-sea corals from Mar del Plata submarine canyon (Southwestern Atlantic Ocean off Argentina)

BERNAL, M. C.; PENCHASZADEH, PABLO E.; CERINO, NADIA; LAURETTA, DANIEL; RISARO, JESSICA

Cartagena

Simposio; 7th Internacional Symposium of Deep-Sea Corals; 2019

Deep-sea coralexploration has been scarce in Argentinean waters, especially in the northernregion. Few expeditions have been made to the area, where the HMS Challenger(1873-1876) and the Walther Herwig (1960?s and 1970?s) expeditions took samplesnear Mar del Plata submarine canyon (up to 1200 m). During 2012 and 2013 threebiological expeditions were made to Mar del Plata submarine canyon, and 64sampling stations were made, from 200 to 3500 m depth. Here we present theresults of the diversity of stony corals (Scleractinia), black corals(Antipatharia), zoantharians (Zoantharia), stylasterids (Hydrozoa:Stylasteridae), sea pens (Pennatulacea) and primnoids (Alcyonacea: Primnoidae)found.Corals were present inmost of the stations, from 201 m to 3282 m depth. Stony corals were moreabundant in number of specimens, with at least 10 species, most within Flabellum, Javania and Fungiacyathus.Primnoids were the more abundant group in number of species (at least 20),distributed mostly within Convexella,Heptaprimnoa, Onogorgia, Plumarella, Primnoella and Thouarella. Stylasterids and sea pens presented about the samenumber of species (14 and 13 respectively) within Cheiloporidion, Conopora,Crypthelia, Errina, Errinopora, Errinopsis, Inferiolabiata, Lepidopora,Sporadopora, Stellapora and Stylasterfor stylasterids, and Anthoptilum,Kophobelemnon, Distichoptilum, Umbellula, Protoptilum, Malacobelemnon,Amphiacme and Funiculina for sea pens. Few specimens of zoantharians werefound, all within Epizoanthus.Finally, 11 specimens of Dendrobathypathesgrandis (Antipatharia) were found, the only black coral reported for thesouthern region of the southwestern Atlantic Ocean off Argentina. Two newspecies were described, and several more are been described. Despite the lowquantity of works dealing with deep-sea corals in Argentina so far, the groupis abundant and diverse. Corals are most likely to be present all along theArgentinean sea (specially beyond 200 m depth).