Abstract
The Gulf of Guinea belongs to the most scarcely sampled marine basins in the oceans of the world. We have analyzed diversity and distribution patterns of cumacean communities on the shelf and slope, along the coast of Ghana. The material was collected in October and November of 2012 using a van Veen grab (0.1 m2) on nine transects. Six stations were located at each transect (25, 50, 100, 250, 500, and 1,000 m). Sixty-three species of Cumacea were recorded withLeuconandEocumaas the most speciose genera, with 12 and eight species, respectively. Comparisons of species richness with literature data pointed that the Ghanaian coast hosts very diverse communities. About 95% of species were new to science, and the number of cumacean species known from the West Africa increased by over 100%. Nevertheless, most of the species had extremely low abundance, 13 singletons and 15 doubletons were found. Mean density of cumaceans was estimated at only 1.5 ind./0.1 m2. Species accumulation curve did not reach the asymptotic level, suggesting undersampling, despite the fact that sampling effort was high (250 samples). The highest species richness was recorded in the inner shelf (25–50 m) and on the slope (1,000 m). Cluster analysis separated shallow water communities from deeper regions on the shelf and upper slope. The most unique species composition was found at 1,000 m. Principal component analysis showed the importance of oxygen, sediments, and human-related disturbance for distribution of cumacean communities. In the shallows, oxygen content and presence of gravel were the most important factors structuring communities. In the deeper bottom areas (250–1,000 m), cumacean fauna was affected by local pollution, mainly by higher concentration of barium, other heavy metals, and THC.
Highlights
Continental margins constitute about 11% of the oceans of the world and are shaped by a complex set of environmental factors that are dynamically changing along a depth gradient (Levin and Sibuet, 2012)
Taking into account generally high sampling effort and large number of sampled stations, it can be assumed that great species rarity was the main reason behind this result
The results demonstrated the highly underestimated diversity of those crustaceans in the Gulf of Guinea, even compared with the global diversity of Cumacea, which was estimated at about 1,400 species (Gerken, 2018)
Summary
Continental margins constitute about 11% of the oceans of the world and are shaped by a complex set of environmental factors that are dynamically changing along a depth gradient (Levin and Sibuet, 2012). Continental margins belong to areas of special economic interests, Cumaceans Diversity From Gulf of Guinea such as fishery and oil industry (Menot et al, 2010) This makes them one of the most interesting natural laboratories for studies of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and environmental gradients as well as influence of human activities and climate change on marine biota (Levin and Sibuet, 2012; Birchenough et al, 2015). The authors of this research pointed out a lack of scientific infrastructure and funding for marine research in developing tropical countries as the main reason of this situation It is highly visible in the case of African marine fauna
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