Finding boundaries in the sea: The Main and Small Gap of the Emperor Seamount Chain as a biogeographic boundary for bathyal benthic fauna

Abstract

Studies on the bathyal fauna of northern Pacific waters suggested that a transition or boundary between the North Pacific Province and Central Pacific Provinces would be found somewhere along the Emperor Seamount Chain. Strong currents flow west to east across the seamount chain in a region known as the Main Gap and it was proposed that any larvae produced either north or south of the Main Gap would not be capable of crossing the gap. An expedition to test the hypothesis that a faunal change would be found in the vicinity of the Main Gap was conducted in 2019. Eleven ROV dives were conducted, one on an unnamed seamount at the southern edge of Hess Rise, and 10 dives on seven seamounts along the Emperor Seamount Chain. Six dives were on seamounts north of the Main Gap, while four (including the dive on Hess Rise) were on the southern side. Of the six northern dives, three were at deeper depths (∼2000–1800 m) and three were shallower (∼1500–1100 m); of the southern dives two were at the deeper depths and two were shallower. One shallower dive occurred on Jingu Seamount, situated on the southern edge of the Main Gap. Analysis of the fauna from both collected specimens and annotations of the dive video produced four clusters: a, the four dives south of the Main Gap; b, the three deeper dives north of the Main Gap; c, the shallower dive at Jingu Seamount; and d, the four shallower bathyal dives north of the Main Gap. It was concluded that the bathyal fauna underwent a significant change from north to south across the area of the Main Gap and the adjacent Small Gap, in the area of 37–39 °N, covering distances as small as 75 km or as much as 400 km.