1. Seamount Ecology Karen Stocks* and Paul Hart *San Diego Supercomputer Center kstocks@sdsc.edu

2. Why Seamounts are Interesting

3. Benthic Community: different species, high biomass (why?)  “Typical” deep seafloor courtesy F. Grassle Seamount  (not necessarily typical!) http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/

4. Pelagic Community “Attractors” for mobile mammals, tuna, turtles, seabirds Differences in abundances of zooplankton, nekton TOPP Program

5. Long Lived species -This spicule is from a sponge 6 feet tall and 440 years old.  - Extremely old corals and crinoids also found. - Long-lived, slow growing fishes Images and age estimates from B. Richer de Forges and collaborators

6. Unusual Biogeography Parin et al. 1997 IWP

7. THE « LIVING FOSSILS » OF THE NORFOLK RIDGE SEAMOUNTS courtesy of Richer de Forges et al. Perotrochus caledonicus Perotrochus boucheti Crinoids : of the 14 genera of New Caledonia, 8 are « living fossils » related to mesozoic fauna Gastropods Pleurotomariidae : 4 species in New Caledonia Brachiopods : A large number of species from the Norfolk Ridge Seamounts are ARCHAICS Neoancistrocrania norfolki Caledonicrinus vaubani Gymnocrinus richeri

8. Endemism Species found in one restricted location (in this case a single seamount or seamount chain) and nowhere else in the ocean Apparent endemism: species that have to date been found in one restricted location and nowhere else in the ocean...yet

9. Seamount Endemism 1987: global review by Wilson and Kaufmann. ~100 seamounts, ~1000 species: 12-15% endemic Since then, several high reports (>1000 more spp) ~35% Tasmanian seamounts (Koslow et al.) 31% Lord Howe seamounts ( Richer de Forges et al. 2000 ) 36% Norfolk Ridge seamounts ( Richer de Forges et al. 2000) 44% (fish), 52% (invertebrates) Nazca and Sala-y- Gomez (Parin et al. 1997) But others low: 12% global fish review (Froese and Sampang 2004) 9% (fish) from Great Meteor (Fock et al.) 5% (fish) from Hawaiian chain (Stocks, in prep)

10. Seamounts as Seamounts as Model Systems What conditions promote and maintain endemism? Do seamounts act as: centers of speciation? refugia for relict populations? stepping-stones for trans-oceanic dispersal?

11. What are the large-scale patterns, and what drives them? What are the gradients in diversity, endemism, and community composition and what drives them (productivity, current regimes, isolation…)  The physical, geological, chemical conditions are key to understanding the biological communities

12. Scope for Interdisciplinary research #1: We need your data and interpretation to understand the communities -As formal collaborations -And as less formal advising

13. Scope for Interdisciplinary research #2: Work together to expand sampling -Interdisciplinary cruises -Adding a biologist to a geological cruise and vice-versa -Developing standard minimal sampling protocols -Sharing samples of broad interest (e.g. bottom imagery)

14. Biological Sampling to Date

15. Number of Species Observations from Global Seamounts -> almost all seamounts are undersampled Missing

16. Depth Bias All Seamounts (14,300) from Kitchingman and Lai 2004

17. Latitude Bias All Seamounts (14,300) from Kitchingman and Lai 2004

18. Active Research ISI publications on seamount biology/ecology as % of total. From Brewin et al. in review

19. Scope for Interdisciplinary research #3: Integrated Data Systems

20. SeamountsOnline – seamounts.sdsc.edu

24. Vema

25. New Prototype

26. Thank You Note: all uncredited images are courtesy of NOAA Ocean Explorer http://www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/