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Large-scale diversity and biogeography of benthic copepods in European waters

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Abstract

A large-scale database concerning benthic copepods from the Arctic, Baltic Sea, North Sea, British Isles, Adriatic Sea and Crete was compiled to assess species richness, biodiversity, communities, ecological range size and biogeographical patterns. The Adriatic showed the highest evenness and the most species-rich communities. Assemblages from the North Sea, British Isles, Baltic and Crete had a lower evenness. The British Isles were characterised by impoverished communities. The ecological specificity of copepod species showed two diverging trends: higher specificity of species in more diverse assemblages was observed in the Adriatic, North Sea and Baltic. A uniformly high species specificity disregarding sample diversity was found on Crete and in the British Isles. Benthic copepod communities showed distinct patterns that clearly fit the predefined geographical regions. Communities were distinguishable and β-diversity was found to be high around Europe, indicating a high species turnover on the scale of this investigation. The British Isles and the North Sea were found to be faunistic links to the Baltic and the Arctic.

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Acknowledgments

The MANUELA project was carried out in the framework of the MarBEF Network of Excellence “Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning”, which was funded by the Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems Programme of the European Community’s Sixth Framework Programme (contract no. GOCE-CT-2003-505446). The second author is a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Flanders, Belgium). Two anonymous reviewers made comments that improved the manuscript considerably.

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Author notes

  1. Edward Vanden Berghe

    Present address: Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. DZMB, Senckenberg Research Institute, Südstrand 44, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Gritta Veit-Köhler, Christina Folkers, Kai Horst George, Pedro Martínez Arbizu & Armin Rose

  2. Marine Biology, Biology Department, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281–S8, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Marleen De Troch, Tania Nara Bezerra, Wendy Bonne, Guy De Smet, Chen Guotong, Jan Vanaverbeke & Magda Vincx

  3. Marine Biology Station Piran, National Institute of Biology, Fornace 41, 6330, Piran, Slovenia

    Mateja Grego & Borut Vriser

  4. Vlaamse Overheid, Departement Economie, Wetenschap en Innovatie, Ellips building, Koning Albert II-laan 35, 1030, Brussels, Belgium

    Rudy Herman

  5. Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD, London, UK

    Rony Huys

  6. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Oceanography, P.O. Box 2214, 71003, Iraklion, Crete, Greece

    Nikolaos Lampadariou

  7. Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research, P.O. Box 120161, 27515, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Jürgen Laudien

  8. Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, NR 33 0HT, UK

    Michaela Schratzberger

  9. Faculty 5, Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences, AG Zoosystematics, University of Oldenburg, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Sybille Seifried

  10. Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, West Hoe, Plymouth, PL1 3DH, UK

    Paul Somerfield

  11. Flanders Marine Institute, Wandelaarkaai 7, 8400, Oostende, Belgium

    Edward Vanden Berghe & Leen Vandepitte

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  1. Gritta Veit-Köhler
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  2. Marleen De Troch
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  20. Edward Vanden Berghe
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  21. Magda Vincx
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gritta Veit-Köhler.

Additional information

Communicated by X. Irigoien.

G. Veit-Köhler, M. De Troch and M. Grego carried out the data analysis, wrote the article and provided data, L. Vandepitte and E. Vanden Berghe established and managed the MANUELA database, J. Vanaverbeke coordinated the MANUELA project and the analysis workshops, all other authors contributed with study data.

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Veit-Köhler, G., De Troch, M., Grego, M. et al. Large-scale diversity and biogeography of benthic copepods in European waters. Mar Biol 157, 1819–1835 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-010-1454-0

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