Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2003 Jan 9:3:1.
doi: 10.1186/1472-6785-3-1.

Biodiversity of nematode assemblages from the region of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, an area of commercial mining interest

P John D Lambshead  1 , Caroline J Brown, Timothy J Ferrero, Lawrence E Hawkins, Craig R Smith, Nicola J Mitchell
Affiliations

Biodiversity of nematode assemblages from the region of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, an area of commercial mining interest

P John D Lambshead et al. BMC Ecol. .

Abstract

Background: The possibility for commercial mining of deep-sea manganese nodules is currently under exploration in the abyssal Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone. Nematodes have potential for biomonitoring of the impact of commercial activity but the natural biodiversity is unknown. We investigate the feasibility of nematodes as biomonitoring organisms and give information about their natural biodiversity.

Results: The taxonomic composition (at family to genus level) of the nematode fauna in the abyssal Pacific is similar, but not identical to, the North Atlantic. Given the immature state of marine nematode taxonomy, it is not possible to comment on the commonality or otherwise of species between oceans. The between basin differences do not appear to be directly linked to current ecological factors. The abyssal Pacific region (including the Fracture Zone) could be divided into two biodiversity subregions that conform to variations in the linked factors of flux to the benthos and of sedimentary characteristics. Richer biodiversity is associated with areas of known phytodetritus input and higher organic-carbon flux. Despite high reported sample diversity, estimated regional diversity is less than 400 species.

Conclusion: The estimated regional diversity of the CCFZ is a tractable figure for biomonitoring of commercial activities in this region using marine nematodes, despite the immature taxonomy (i.e. most marine species have not been described) of the group. However, nematode ecology is in dire need of further study.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cluster analysis of samples on fourth root transformed data using the Bray-Curtis index of similarity and single linkage clustering. The samples are labelled according to the station from which they were collected.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Plots of the species accumulation curves against numbers of individuals for the whole data set (diamonds), the southern phytodetritus-influenced samples (squares) and the northern samples (triangles).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The Clipperton Clarion Fracture Zone in the central eastern Pacific showing the area where there is interest in deep-sea mining. The small squares show the stations from which samples were taken for this study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lambshead PJD, Schalk P. Overview of Marine Invertebrate Biodiversity. In: Levin S, editor. Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. Vol. 3. Academic Press; 2001. pp. 543–549.
    1. Gray JS. The measurement of marine species diversity, with an application to the benthic fauna of the Norwegian continental shelf. J Exp Biol Ecol. 2000;250:23–49. - PubMed
    1. Boucher G, Lambshead PJD. Marine nematode ecological biodiversity in samples from temperate, tropical and deep-sea regions. Conservation Biology. 1995;9:1594–1604.
    1. Lambshead PJD. Recent developments in marine benthic biodiversity research. Oceanis. 1993;19:5–24.
    1. Lambshead PJD. Marine nematode biodiversity. In: Chen ZX, Chen SY, Dickson DW, editor. Nematology, advances and perspectives. ACSE-TUP Book Series;

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources