Wood boring bivalves from NW Mediterranean and Cantabrian deep sea canyons on experimentally sunken woods Chiara Romano 1 , Janet R. Voight 2 , Sara Román 1 , Marta Segura 1 , Nadine Le Bris 3 , Daniel Martin 1 1 Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB – CSIC9, c/ Accés a la Cala St. Francesc, 14, E-17300 Blanes, Spain 2 Integrative Research Center, The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA 3 Université Pierre et Marie Curie – Benthic Ecogeochemistry (LECOB) CNRS UPMC UMR8222– Observatoire océanologique. Banyuls-sur-Mer, France. MATERIAL AND METHODS Acknowledgements: We gratefully thank the other teams of the project and the crew of the R/ V Garcia del Cid for helping during the cruises. The present work was developed within the framework of the PROMETEO ((CTM 2007-66316- C02-02/ MAR) and DOS MARES Projects (CTM2010-21810-C03-03) and the CNRS GDRE DI WOOD Project References • Bienhold C, Pop Ristova P, Wenzhöfer F, Dittmar T and Boetius A (2013). PLoS ONE 8. • Distel DL and Roberts SJ (1997). Biological Bulletin (Woods Hole) 192: 253-261. • Fagervold SK, Romano C, Kalenitchenko D, Borowski C, Nunes-Jorge A, et al. (2014). PLoS ONE 9: e96248. • Gaudron SM, Pradillon F, Pailleret M, Duperron S, Le Bris N, et al. (2010) Mar Envir Res 70: 1-12. • Romano C, Voight JR, Company JB, Plyuscheva M, Martin D (2013) Progress in Oceanography 118: 175-187 • Romano C, Voight JR, Pérez-Portela R and Martin D (2014). PLoS ONE 9: e102887. • Wolff T (1979) Sarsia 64: 117-135. LDC Three replicates of wood pieces (8-13 cm long) of pine and oak were deployed at different depths (130-4700 m) inside four submarine canyons: Blanes Canyon (BC) La Fonera Canyon (LFC) Lacaze-Duthiers Canyon (LDC) Avilés Canyon (AC). Each wood piece was enclosed by plastic net bag with a 0.5 cm mesh. This allowed juveniles to settle but minimized losses during recovery. They were collected after releasing by an acoustic releaser or with an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) after 3, 6 and 12 months. Wood samples were carefully dissected with the aid of a magnifier (2x) or a dissecting microscope to collect and count all xylophagaids. NW Mediterranean Sea Cantabrian Sea RESULTS Xylophaga dorsalis (Turton, 1819) Xylophaga brava Romano et al., 2014 Xylophaga atlantica Richards, 1942 Xyloredo cf. ingolfia Turner, 1972 Xylophaga cf. anselli Harvey, 1996 LDC 500 m X. dorsalis LFC 1100 m X. dorsalis, X. brava, X. atlantica Depth LFC 130 m N. cf. knoxi X. dorsalis AC Nototeredo cf. knoxi (Bartsch, 1917) 1200 m 2000 m X. dorsalis, X. atlantica X. cf. anselli X. cf. ingolfia 4700 m - none 3 mm 5 mm 5 mm 5 mm Life in the deep-sea ecosystems is generally dependent on the constant rain and fall of matter from the photic zone and the continental shelf. Submarine canyons deeply incising the shelf and off river mouths may trap and concentrate wood falls (e.g. terrestrial debris and sunken wood) from wide areas. Wood falls create unique ecosystems colonized by specialized macrobenthic fauna, such as opportunistic and sulphophilic species (Wolff 1979; Gaudron et al., 2010; Bienhold et al., 2013). The primary degraders of sunken wood on the deep sea floor are the bivalves of the family Xylophagaidae, able to digest wood with the help of symbiotic bacteria (Distel et al., 2000). Recently have been demonstrated that the abundance of wood–borers is higher inside the canyon than at the adjacent open slope (Romano et al. 2013). However very little is known about the distribution and the biogeography of these species. The aim of the present study is to compare the diversity and distribution wood boring bivalves in experimentally deployed wood in four different submarine canyons. INTRODUCTION Wood-boring species Cantabrian Sea 900 m 1200 m 1500 m X. dorsalis, X. brava, X. atlantica BC 5 mm View publication stats View publication stats