Polychaetes from Burdwood Bank: Namuncurá MPA and slope.

PUENTE TAPIA F; ELIAS R.; GENZANO G. N.; BREMEC C.; SCHEJTER L.; CALLA

Simposio; Simposio Latinoamericano de Poliquetos; 2018

The first open-sea (non-coastal) Marine Protected Area in Argentina, named?Namuncurá? (NMPA), was created in 2013 at Burdwood Bank, an undersea plateaulocated about 200 km south from Malvinas Islands and 150km east from Isla de los Estados, SW Atlantic Ocean. It comprises nearly 28.000km2 circumscribed by the 200 m isobath, between 54°-55°S and56°-62°W, characterized by subantarctic waters of 4° to 5°C in the surface. Theplateau depth varies between 50 and 200 m, where the bottom abruptly breaksinto a wall reaching 1100 to more than 3000 m depth. Embedded into theArgentinean ?Pampa Azul? Marine National Science Project, the NMPA is aconservation goal that represents a challenge regarding management andplanning. It comprises 3 different management areas according to the protectionlevel required: the central one (?core?, strict protection, only control andmonitoring activities), surrounded by a ?buffer? area (authorized activities, e.g.scientific research) and an external ?transition? area (productive andextractive activities contemplated in the Management Plan). Beyond thetransition area, the shelf-break and nearby areas present no protectionmeasures. The present objective is to provide the inventory of polychaetescollected during 2016 and 2017 at the core (98m depth), buffer (128m depth), transition(133m-189m depth) and slope areas (220m-798m depth), taken with a trawl net usedto characterize the faunal assemblages. We identified 22 taxa, mainlyepibenthic or associated with the large corals collected. Some species were conspicuousand distributed in a wide depth range (Polyeunoalaevis, Hermadion magalhaensi, Serpula narconensis, Thelepus sp. cf. T. cincinnatus). Otherswere only collected within the NMPA: Chaetopterusantarcticus, Nicolea chilensis, Trypanosyllis gigantea, Boccardia sp., Hermadion sp., Nephtyssp., Sabellidae (2 species). Pistamirabilis and Harmothoe sp. wererecorded in the transition and slope areas, while Nicon maculata and Hyalinoeciaartifex characterized the deepest slope.