First description of deep benthic habitats and communities of oceanic islands and seamounts of the Nazca Desventuradas Marine Park, Chile.

ABSTRACT: Seamounts and oceanic islands of the Chilean Exclusive Economic Zone at the intersection of the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges lie within one of the least explored areas in the world. The sparse information available, mainly for seamounts outside Chilean jurisdiction and shallow-water fauna of the Desventuradas Islands, suggests that the area is a hotspot of endemism. This apparent uniqueness of the fauna motivated the creation of the large Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park (NDMP, ~ 300,000 km²) around the small islands San Felix and San Ambrosio in 2015. We report for the first time a detailed description of benthic microhabitats (i.e., centimeter to meter scale), macrohabitats (i.e., meter to kilometer-scale) and associated megafauna within the NDMP. Descriptions were based on a

SUBMITTER: Tapia-Guerra JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7973752 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature