Deep water marine lobsters and lithodids (Crustacea: Decapoda) from Mauritania (NW Africa) collected by the Spanish Maurit surveys
-
1
Universidad de Vigo, Departamento de Ecología y Biología Animal, Spain
-
2
Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo, Spain
The Spanish Maurit surveys were carried out annually from 2007 to 2010, in waters off Mauritania at depths from 80 to 2000 m. A total of 342 stations were sampled, covering the different habitats represented in the Mauritanian slope. Samples were collected using a commercial trawl and a beam trawl in soft bottoms, and a rock dredge for sampling on hard bottoms, namely the giant coral carbonate mounds barrier, the canyon systems in northern Mauritania and seamount.
Decapods identification has thrown up a total of 132 different species of which shrimps and prawns and the true crabs were the most diverse with 57 and 34 species; anomurans were represented by 29 species and thalassinideans by four.
The taxonomic results obtained for the squat lobsters, hermit crabs, braquiurans and thalassinideans, including the description of four new species have already been published (S. de Matos-Pita and Ramil, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016) or it is still in press (S. de Matos-Pita et al, in press). The structure of the decapod assemblages were also analyzed in García-Isarch et al (in edition).
This contribution deals with the main results obtained during the study of the marine lobsters within the infraorders Astacidea, Achelata and Polychelida, and we also included some comments about the anomuran family Lithodidae.
The marine lobsters are represented by eight species: Nephropsis atlantica Norman, 1882, Palinurus mauritanicus Gruvel, 1911, Scyllarus caparti Holthuis, 1952, Scyllarus subarctus Crosnier, 1970, Polycheles typhlops Heller, 1862, Stereomastis nana (Smith, 1884), Stereomastis sculpta (Smith, 1880) and Stereomastis talismani (Bouvier, 1917). The true lobster N. atlantica and the blind lobster S. nana are reported for the first time in Mauritanian waters despite their wide distribution in the eastern Atlantic. At the same time, the presence of the slipper lobster S. subarctus in Mauritanian waters is confirmed.
Lithodidae collected on Mauritanian continental shelf and slope soft bottoms during the Spanish surveys account for five species and a part of this collection was included by Muñoz and García-Isarch (2013) in their study of African Lithodidae. The identification of additional material adds the first record of Paralomis cristulata Macpherson, 1988 in Mauritanian waters, slightly increasing its distribution northwards. In addition, this record represents the deepest one ever reported.
References
García-Isarch, E., S. de Matos-Pita, S., Muñoz, I., Mohamed, S. y Ramil, F. (in edition) Decapod assemblages in Mauritanian waters. In: Ramos, A., Sanz, J. L. and Ramil, F. (eds) Deep-sea ecosystems off Mauritania: Researching marine biodiversity and habitats in West African deepwaters. Springer, Heidelberg (accepted)
Matos-Pita, S.S. de and Ramil, F. (2014) Squat lobsters (Crustacea: Anomura) from Mauritanian waters (West Africa), with the description of a new species of Munidopsis. Zootaxa, 3765 (5): 418–434.
Matos-Pita, S.S. de and Ramil, F. (2015a) Hermit crabs (Decapoda: Crustacea) from deep Mauritanian waters (NW Africa) with the description of a new species. Zootaxa, 3926(2): 151–190.
Matos-Pita, S.S. de and Ramil, F. (2015) Additions to the thalassinidean fauna (Crustacea: Decapoda) off Mauritania (NW Africa) with the description of a new genus and a new species. Zootaxa, 4020(3): 571–587.
Matos-Pita, S.S. de and Ramil, F. (2016) New species of Neopilumnoplax Serène in Guinot, 1969 (Decapoda, Brachyura, Mathildellidae) from Northwest Africa with a key to the genus. Marine Biodiversity, 46: 253–260.
Matos-Pita, S.S. de, Castillo, S. and Ramil, F. (in press) Contribution to the knowledge of the deep brachyuran fauna (Crustacea: Decapoda) in waters off Mauritania (NW Africa). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.
Muñoz, I. and García-Isarch, E. (2013) New occurrences of lithodid crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Lithodidae) from the coasts of Africa, with the description of a new species of Paralomis White, 1856. Zootaxa, 3670 (1): 045–054.
Keywords:
NW Africa,
Mauritania,
deep sea,
Decapoda,
marine lobsters,
Lithodids
Conference:
XIX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies, Porto, Portugal, 5 Sep - 9 Sep, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
1. ECOLOGY, BIODIVERSITY AND VULNERABLE ECOSYSTEMS
Citation:
Soto De Matos-Pita
S and
Ramil
F
(2016). Deep water marine lobsters and lithodids (Crustacea: Decapoda) from Mauritania (NW Africa) collected by the Spanish Maurit surveys.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
XIX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2016.05.00124
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
30 Apr 2016;
Published Online:
03 Sep 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Susana Soto De Matos-Pita, Universidad de Vigo, Departamento de Ecología y Biología Animal, Vigo, Pontevedra, 36310, Spain, soto@uvigo.es