Observation of a high abundance aggregation of the deep-sea urchin Chaetodiadema pallidum A. Agassiz and H.L. Clark, 1907 on the Northwestern Hawaiian Island Mokumanamana

DOI

AUV images of deep-sea megafauna on the seamount Mokumanamana in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands revealed a large aggregation of the diadematoid urchin Chaetodiadema pallidum. This species had not been previously recorded on this seamount, but was known from other locations in the Hawaiian Archipelago. A total of 11,360 individuals were counted by eye from 1,369 seafloor images along the 200, 250, and 300 m depth contours on the west side of Mokumanamana. To estimate the full population size, Inverse Distance Weighting and Empirical Bayesian Kriging interpolation calculated a total population size of between 139,552 and 144,063 individuals. These estimates are 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than any previous estimates of urchin aggregation abundances. Little biological data exists for this species; thus, it is difficult to know if this is a spawning aggregation, a feeding front, a type of "schooling" behavior, or some combination thereof, but a food source did seem to be present in the form of mesophotic green algal detritus.

Supplement to: Morgan, Nicole B; Baco, Amy R (2019): Observation of a high abundance aggregation of the deep-sea urchin Chaetodiadema pallidum A. Agassiz and H.L. Clark, 1907 on the Northwestern Hawaiian Island Mokumanamana. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.903580
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2019.06.013
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.903580
Provenance
Creator Morgan, Nicole B ORCID logo; Baco, Amy R
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2019
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Supplementary Dataset; Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 14930 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-164.873W, 23.550S, -164.864E, 23.574N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2015-11-03T01:40:05Z
Temporal Coverage End 2015-11-03T05:11:45Z