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Marine Biodiversity

, Volume 45, Issue 4, pp 743–762 | Cite as

Long-term iceshelf-covered meiobenthic communities of the Antarctic continental shelf resemble those of the deep sea

  • Armin Rose
  • Jeroen IngelsEmail author
  • Maarten Raes
  • Ann Vanreusel
  • Pedro Martínez Arbizu
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Since strong regional warming has led to the disintegration of huge parts of the Larsen A and B ice shelves east of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1995 and 2002, meiofaunal communities covered by ice shelves for thousands of years could be investigated for the first time. Based on a dataset of more than 230,000 individuals, meiobenthic higher taxa diversity and composition of Larsen continental shelf stations were compared to those of deep-sea stations in the Western Weddell Sea to see whether the food-limiting conditions in the deep sea and the food-poor shelf regime at times of iceshelf coverage has resulted in similar meiobenthic communities, on the premises that food availability is the main driver of meiobenthic assemblages. We show here that this is indeed the case; in terms of meiobenthic communities, there is greater similarity between the deep sea and the inner Larsen embayments than there is similarity between the deep sea and the former Larsen B iceshelf edge and the open continental shelf. We also show that resemblance to Antarctic deep-sea meiofaunal communities was indeed significantly higher for communities of the innermost Larsen B area than for those from intermediate parts of Larsen A and B. Similarity between communities from intermediate parts and the deep sea was again higher than between those of the ice-edge and the open shelf. Meiofaunal densities were low at the inner parts of Larsen A and B, and comparable to deep-sea densities, again likely owing to the low food supply at both habitats. We suggest that meiobenthic communities have not yet recovered from the food-limiting conditions present at the time of iceshelf coverage. Meiofaunal diversity on the other hand seemed driven by sediment structure, being higher in coarser sediments.

Keywords

Climate change Iceshelf break-up Metazoan meiofauna Antarctic Peninsula Larsen A Larsen B ANDEEP 2 Deep sea 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Annika Janssen, Erik Gutzmann, Marco Bruhn, Jutta Heitfeld, and Annika Hellmann for sorting meiofaunal organisms, as well as Dirk Van Gansbeke and Bart Beuselinck for laboratory analyses on sediment properties and phytopigments. The officers and crew of RV Polarstern, cruise legs ANT-XXIII/8 and ANT-XXVII/3, are greatly acknowledged for their valuable support on board. Special thanks go to Dr Gritta Veit-Köhler for her constructive remarks. This study was financially supported by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Priority Programme “Antarctic Research”, SSP 1158: project RO 3004/2), which is gratefully acknowledged by the first author. Contributions of Jeroen Ingels, Maarten Raes and Ann Vanreusel were conducted within the framework of the BIANZO II project, financed by the Belgian Science Policy (Scientific Research Program on Antarctica). J.I. is currently supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (Grant Agreement FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF No 300879).

Supplementary material

12526_2014_284_MOESM1_ESM.docx (47 kb)
Table S1 Individuals densities [(core average per taxon and total) N per 10 cm2], total number of meiofaunal higher taxa, and number of cores for eleven investigated stations from three West Antarctic regions; also shown are frequencies of taxa over stations (Freq), mean and median densities over stations, median-to-mean ratio (Med/Mean), as well as total numbers of individuals, taxa and investigated cores. (DOCX 46 kb)
12526_2014_284_MOESM2_ESM.docx (40 kb)
Table S2 Selected community parameters for eleven stations (medians of number of meiofaunal higher taxa and individuals per core; medians of Shannon’s, Simpson’s, and rarefaction diversity ET(500) per core; rarefaction diversity ET(500) on site scale) and environmental factors if available [medians of depth and volumetric (V) mean in the first cm of sediment; *) CPE inventories in the first eleven cm of sediment after Sañe Schepísi et al. 2011]. (DOCX 39 kb)
12526_2014_284_MOESM3_ESM.docx (39 kb)
Table S3 Significance of regression coefficients for linear regressions (pos: positive slope; neg: negative slope) of selected community parameters on selected environmental factors (see Table S2 and text for details). (DOCX 38 kb)
12526_2014_284_MOESM4_ESM.docx (41 kb)
Table S4 Left part: endpoints of environmentals vectors along the first three CCA axes [upper part: all stations (see Fig. 7a, b and text); lower part: Larsen B and Elephant Island stations (see Fig. 7a); rel expl: vector length/explanatory power on the first three axes for a certain factor relative to the shortest vector (last one in the list: set to 1); bold numbers indicate the axis to which a certain factor shows the highest correlation]. Right part: overall eigenvalues and explanatory powers of the first three, and of all axes according to the total inertia/variation in both datasets. (DOCX 41 kb)
12526_2014_284_MOESM5_ESM.docx (116 kb)
Table S5 Overview of the main characteristics of selected community parameters and environmental factors (see Table S2 and text for details) for the two ecologically most distinct Larsen B shelf stations and the four ANDEEP-2 deep-sea stations; ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ are rough estimates relative to all investigated stations. (DOCX 115 kb)

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© Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • Armin Rose
    • 1
  • Jeroen Ingels
    • 2
    Email author
  • Maarten Raes
    • 3
  • Ann Vanreusel
    • 3
  • Pedro Martínez Arbizu
    • 4
  1. 1.BioConsult SH GmbH & Co KGHusumGermany
  2. 2.Plymouth Marine LaboratoryPlymouthUK
  3. 3.Marine Biology Section, Biology DepartmentGhent UniversityGhentBelgium
  4. 4.Senckenberg am Meer WilhelmshavenWilhelmshavenGermany

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