Journal article
Reef benthos of Seychelles - a field guide
- Abstract:
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Background
During the 2019 First Descent: Seychelles Expedition, shallow and deep reef ecosystems of the Seychelles Outer Islands were studied by deploying a variety of underwater technologies to survey their benthic flora and fauna. Submersibles, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and SCUBA diving teams used stereo-video camera systems to record benthic communities during transect surveys conducted at 10 m, 30 m, 60 m, 120 m, 250 m and 350 m depths. In total, ~ 45 h of video footage was collected during benthic transect surveys, which was subsequently processed using annotation software in order to assess reef biodiversity and community composition. Here, we present a photographic guide for the visual identification of the marine macrophytes, corals, sponges and other common invertebrates that inhabit Seychelles’ reefs. It is hoped that the resulting guide will aid marine biologists, conservationists, managers, divers and naturalists with the coarse identification of organisms as seen in underwater footage or live in the field.
New information
A total of 184 morphotypes (= morphologically similar individuals) were identified belonging to Octocorallia (47), Porifera (35), Scleractinia (32), Asteroidea (19), Echinoidea (10), Actiniaria (9), Chlorophyta (8), Antipatharia (6), Hydrozoa (6), Holothuroidea (5), Mollusca (2), Rhodophyta (2), Tracheophyta (2), Annelida (1), Crinoidea (1), Ctenophora (1), Ochrophyta (1) and Zoantharia (1). Out of these, we identified one to phylum level, eight to class, 14 to order, 27 to family, 110 to genus and 24 to species. This represents the first attempt to catalogue the benthic diversity from shallow reefs and up to 350 m depth in Seychelles.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, 23.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.3897/bdj.9.e65970
Authors
- Publisher:
- Pensoft Publishers
- Journal:
- Biodiversity Data Journal More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Article number:
- e65970
- Publication date:
- 2021-08-27
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-07-03
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1314-2828
- Pmid:
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34552373
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1185198
- Local pid:
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pubs:1185198
- Deposit date:
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2021-10-20
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Fassbender et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- ©2021 Fassbender N et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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