Abundance, diversity, and latitudinal gradients of southeastern Atlantic and Antarctic abyssal gastropods

Mollusca are widely used for deriving concepts on deep-sea biology and biodiversity, yet abyssal collections are limited to only a few regions of the world ocean and biased toward the northern Atlantic. The present study compares gastropod molluscs sampled along a transect through the southern Atlantic from the equator to Antarctica. The DIVA I and II expeditions concentrated on the hardly explored Guinea, Angola, and Cape Basins. Of the 145 deep-sea deployments (5025-5656 m depth) analyzed to date, 20 have yielded 68 specimens of benthic gastropods, representing 27 species. Only five abyssal species were previously known, four of them from the northern Atlantic deep sea; the remainder appear to be undescribed. Interestingly, there is no faunal overlap with the nearby Antarctic deep-sea. Most of these DIVA species (63%) are represented by single individuals, or limited to one or two stations. The rarity (i.e. 0.55 specimens m−2 calculated from quantitative corers) and still undetectable patchiness of southeastern Atlantic abyssal gastropods may indicate “source-sink” dynamics, but comparison is needed with thus far hardly explored regional bathyal faunas. The BRENKE-epibenthic sledge (EBS) may be efficient at surveying the abyssal gastropod species richness, but is shown to drastically underestimate true abundances. Low diversity values throughout the three southern Atlantic ocean basins do further challenge earlier estimates of a hyperdiverse global abyssal macrofauna. Comparative EBS data available from the southern hemisphere indicate a gradient from the equatorial Guinea Basin towards higher gastropod abundances and diversity in Antarctica. This is in clear contrast to the paradigm of a globally strongly decreasing marine diversity from lower to higher latitudes, highlighting the importance of further exploring the southern fauna from the tropics to Antarctica.