Decapod crustacean larval communities in the Balearic Sea (western Mediterranean): Seasonal composition, horizontal and vertical distribution patterns

Spatio-temporal variation of planktonic decapods along the leeward coast of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, Brazil

“…Díaz et al, 2009;Koettker et al, 2010 andBrandão et al, 2013), the open area of this archipelago (Brandão et al, 2013) and alongshore of the Canary Islands (Landeira et al, 2013). The abundance recorded in the present study was like those recorded for the open area around St. Peter and St. Paul's (Koettker et al, 2010), being higher than the values recorded by Landeira et al (2009Landeira et al ( , 2010 in waters around the Canary Islands and Torres et al (2013) in the Balearic Sea. Despite the species Lucifer typus H. Milne Edwards, 1837 being recorded at insular environments in the Atlantic Ocean, like Canary Islands (Landeira et al, 2009(Landeira et al, , 2010 and St. Peter and St. Paul's (Díaz et al, 2009), this common luciferid shrimp was not recorded herein.…”

Larval stages of the deep-sea lobster Polycheles typhlops (Decapoda, Polychelida) identified by DNA analysis: morphology, systematic, distribution and ecology

“…Although occurrences of adult polychelid lobsters on the epibenthos of the middle slope are common in the study area (Ramón et al 2014), P. typhlops larvae were rare among all the collected material and were found exclusively in aphotic layers, corresponding to the lowest fluorescence values (Torres et al 2014). The highest peak of P. typhlops larval abundances during the summer agrees with the highest frequency of ovigerous females in the Mediterranean (Follesa et al 2007), and the bi-seasonal presence of larvae is in agreement with the fact that P. typhlops males are sexually active during the whole year (Cabiddu et al 2008;Gastoni et al 2010).…”

“…Organic matter mean content of settling material, opal and CaCO 3 fluxes to the necto-benthic communities estimated during the same oceanographic surveys show that the major inputs of marine organic matter (phytoplankton blooms) took place during summer in the south, being lithogenic fraction higher in the north area (Pasqual et al submitted). On the north-west study area, where the shelf is narrower and the slope is quite pronounced, the currents over the shelf create mixed conditions (Torres et al 2014). Laboratory studies on captured bathyal echinoids indicate that an increase in gonad size in response to food enhancement could increase spawning production (Eckelbarger and Watling 1995), and a similar response could also explain the highest P. typhlops larval abundance in the southern slope.…”

“…Each oblique haul was performed down to 200 m depth on the shelf break and 500 m (in summer) or 850 m (in late autumn) on the middle slope, and seven or five depth strata were sampled depending on the season (summer and late autumn, respectively). The thickness of these strata changed with bathymetry and season (sampling protocols as in Torres et al 2014). Supra-benthos samples were collected with a rectangular net rigged in a beam-trawl and used to catch mega-benthic fauna within 0.6 m above the bottom, with a cod-end mesh size of 500 lm in late autumn and 1,000 lm during summer.…”

“…Spawning-related movements to locate the optimal depth range for hatching may explain the large proportion of ovigerous females at the shallowest depths of the species distribution, as found in other bathyal species (Wigley et al 1975;Somerton 1981;Abelló and Macpherson 1991). Knowledge on larval morphology, vertical distribution and ecology of many decapod species is still scarce in the Western Mediterranean (Torres et al , 2014 and particularly for deepsea species. This is largely due to the relative scarcity of plankton samples covering the entire water column and the lack of expertise for their correct identification.…”