Abstract
In the Strait of Georgia and Howe Sound, British Columbia, colonies of individual cloud sponges, growing on rock (known as sponge gardens) receive resource subsidies from the high biodiversity of epifauna on adjacent rock habitats. Bioherms are reefs of glass sponges living on layers of dead sponges. In the same area as the sponge gardens, newly discovered bioherms in Howe Sound, BC (49.34.67 N, 123.16.26 W) at depths of 28- to 35-m are constructed exclusively by Aphrocallistes vastus, the cloud sponge. The sponge gardens had much higher taxon richness than the bioherms. The sponge garden had 106 species from 10 phyla, whereas the bioherm had only 15 species from 5 phyla. For recruiting juvenile rockfish (quillback, Sebastes maliger), the food subsidy of sponge gardens appears to be missing on bioherms of cloud sponge, where biodiversity is relatively low. While adult and subadult rockfishes (S. maliger, S. ruberrimus, S. proriger, and S. elongatus) were present on bioherms, no evidence for nursery recruitment of inshore rockfishes to bioherms was observed, whereas the sponge gardens supported high densities of newly recruited S. maliger, perhaps owing to the combination of both refuge and feeding opportunities. These results indicate that sponge gardens form a habitat for early stages of inshore S. maliger, whereas A. vastus bioherms are associated only with older juvenile and adult rockfishes.
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Acknowledgments
The authors (AL, DMG) gratefully acknowledge years of taxonomic verifications by the experts listed in Lamb and Hanby (2005). John Fisher, Danny Kent, Paul Malcolm, Conor McCracken and other Vancouver Aquarium staff assisted with diving. Kevin Kaufman assisted with graphics. Kris Moulton created the map. Alejandro Frid provided manuscript review comments. Multibeam surveys undertaken by the Canadian Hydrographic Service, Sidney allowed discovery of the deeper water sponge bioherms described in this paper. Steve Taylor (PGC) ably piloted the DFO Remotely Operated Vehicle Monica.
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Communicated by J. P. Grassle.
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Marliave, J.B., Conway, K.W., Gibbs, D.M. et al. Biodiversity and rockfish recruitment in sponge gardens and bioherms of southern British Columbia, Canada. Mar Biol 156, 2247–2254 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-009-1252-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-009-1252-8