Journal article
Invertebrate diversity of the unexplored marine western margin of Australia: taxonomy and implications for global biodiversity
GCB Poore, L Avery, M Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, J Browne, NL Bruce, S Gerken, C Glasby, E Greaves, AW McCallum, D Staples, A Syme, J Taylor, G Walker-Smith, M Warne, C Watson, A Williams, RS Wilson, S Woolley
Marine Biodiversity | Published : 2015
Abstract
However derived, predictions of global marine species diversity rely on existing real data. All methods, whether based on past rates of species descriptions, on expert opinion, on the fraction of undescribed species in samples collected, or on ratios between taxa in the taxonomic hierarchy, suffer the same limitation. Here we show that infaunal macrofauna (crustaceans and polychaetes) of the lower bathyal depth range are underrepresented among available data and documented results from Australia. The crustacean and polychaete fauna (only partially identified) of the bathyal continental margin of Western Australia comprised 805 species, representing a largely novel and endemic fauna. Overall,..
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Awarded by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Funding Acknowledgements
[ "We are grateful to many colleagues from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research for their contributions to the Voyages of Discovery research program. We thank Nic Bax for help in securing funds, Rudy Kloser for his part in leadership of the surveys, Franzis Althaus who prepared the map, and Mark Lewis, Bruce Barker, and Karen Gowlett-Holmes for taking the samples while on board the FRV Southern Surveyor. They were assisted by Julian Finn (Museum Victoria). We acknowledge the Commonwealth Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities, and the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship for financial support and the field and laboratory components of the Voyages of Discovery program. We appreciate the valuable contribution of Jim Lowry (Australian Museum) who identified some amphipods, Jean Just (Copenhagen) who commented on some asellote isopod identifications, Kamille Hammerstrom (Moss Landing Marine Laboratories) who provided data from the Californian study, and anonymous referees for commentary on earlier versions of this paper.", "This work has been funded through the National Environmental Research Program (NERP) program, an Australian Government initiative supporting world class, public good research. The NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub is a collaborative partnership between the University of Tasmania, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship, Geoscience Australia, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Museum Victoria, Charles Darwin University, and the University of Western Australia (www.nerpmarine.edu.au). The contribution of M. Blazewicz-Paszkowycz was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (contract 7984/B/P01/2011/40). The paper is a contribution to COMARGE (Continental Margin Ecosystems) (http://www.ifremer.fr/comarge/en/index.html), one of 14 Census of Marine Life (CoML http://www.coml.org/) field projects, dedicated to the description and understanding of biodiversity patterns on continental margins." ]