Abstract
The population structure of Hirondellea gigas (Birstein and Vinogradov, 1955), collected by baited trap from 8172 and 9316 m in the Izu-Bonin Trench (NW Pacific) was examined. Specimens were categorized according to sex and life stage. At 8172 m, juveniles comprised the overwhelming majority of the population, whilst at 9316 m the male: female: juvenile ratio was more evenly distributed, suggesting vertical ontogenetic structuring. Furthermore, juveniles from 8172 m were significantly smaller than those from 9316 m with an average body length of 11.1 mm (+/- 4.6 S.D.) compared to 19.8 mm (+/- 3.1 S.D.). Females and males showed the opposite trend to juveniles, with both the largest individuals and the greatest proportion of males and females occurring at 9316 m, no female 6 nor brooding females were captured. Female reproductive strategies and the environmental drivers of ontogenetic structuring of H. gigas populations are discussed. We conclude that pressure per se does not drive the observed trends but rather an interaction between depth (pressure) and topography-influenced distribution of resources in terms of both quality and quantity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 793-801 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of crustacean biology |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |
Funding
This work was supported by the HADEEP project (funded by the Nippon Foundation, Japan, and the Natural Environmental Research Council, UK). We thank the chief scientist, captain and the crew of the RV Tansei-Mara KT-09-03. We thank Dr. Toyonobu Fujii (University of Aberdeen, UK) and Dr. Martin Solan (NOCS, UK) for their assistance at sea. We thank Dr. K. Kita-Tsukamoto, Prof. H. Tokuyama and Prof. M. Nishida at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Japan. A.J.J. and N.C.L. are funded by the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.
Keywords
- Amphipoda
- deep sea
- Hirondellea gigas
- populations
- Central North Pacific
- scavenging amphipods
- eurythenes-gryllus
- organic-matter
- reproductive bionomics
- necrophagous amphipod
- deep
- ocean
- sea
- depth
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