S.Atlantic : South Georgia: 2014 Marine Species and Counting
Submitted by SARTMA.com (Juanita Brock) 30.09.2011 (Article Archived on 14.10.2011)

The high biodiversity of South Georgia waters is proving a hot topic. There are several current projects working on this and new species are being identified from samples collected in recent years, with more work planned.

2014 Marine Species and Counting

The high biodiversity of South Georgia waters is proving a hot topic. There are several current projects working on this and new species are being identified from samples collected in recent years, with more work planned.

A list of species recently compiled by biologist Jamie Watts includes 2014 known species from the waters around South Georgia - an almost incredible number for any polar area. The list is just a start point and Jamie expects it to grow a good deal as research continues. He complied the list from species noted by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists Oliver Hogg and Dave Barnes (who published a paper assessing the marine biodiversity on South Georgia’s continental shelf in 'PloSONE' earlier this year), adding more species he encountered whilst working as a scientist a the King Edward Point Science base and subsequent visits to the Island, as well as from other verified sources. The list is made up of marine animals found within the shelf and slope regions of South Georgia and Shag Rocks. There are 454 crustaceans (195 of them amphipods), 194 bryozoans, 179 echinoderms, 170 polychaete worms, 111 gastropods, and 106 bony fishes. Jamie says that, “South Georgia waters are by far the most bio-diverse (and productive) area in the Southern Ocean, and there’s probably no marine polar environment anywhere that has anything like this number of species.“

The UK, by contrast, has about a third the summer biological productivity per unit area. “Around 2000 is not a huge number of species compared to something like a coral reef” Jamie said, “but in terms of the numbers of individual animals and overall productivity there’s nowhere that matches it.”

Perhaps unexpectedly, the list also includes humans, Jamie justifies this because, “...with fisheries we are a small but significant marine predator to this ecosystem. Interestingly, although South Georgia is the focal point to most of the Antarctic fisheries, humans are a far smaller consumer of resources here (compared to other major predators and as a proportion of the available productivity) than any other productive fisheries area on the planet.”

The list is “Far from complete”, Jamie says, “There are at least a few dozen species that have ranges to either side but have not yet been recorded at South Georgia. There will also be many as yet undescribed species to be found in the future.”

For instance, new species will join the list once work is complete on samples collected by 'Shallow Marine Surveys Group' (SMSG) Analysis of the survey samples from the November dive survey by SMSG is currently underway and initial results highlight a greater diversity than expected. Paul Brewin of SMSG is presenting preliminary results at the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity, Aberdeen, in September. The Group will return to collect more samples this summer too.

There is also a deep water benthos survey, collecting samples from all around South Georgia, being conducted from the BAS research vessel “RRS James Clark Ross” in late October.