Oceanic cephalopods around Atlantic seamounts and islands

Cephalopod International Advisory Council Conference, Cephalopods in the Anthropocene: Multiple Challenges in a Changing Ocean, April 2-8, 2022, Sesimbra, Portugal

Several old and recent collections of oceanic cephalopods collected during research surveys in Atlantic waters, were put together to improve our knowledge on the distribution of cephalopod species and the pelagic realm biodiversity in the Atlantic Ocean. Sampling area covers the Irving, Tyro and Atlantis seamounts south of the Azores Archipelago and the Gorringe Bank, Seine, Ampere and Josephine seamounts in the Madeira-Tore region, the oceanic waters between the Portuguese southern continental shelf and these seamounts and waters surrounding Cape Verde Islands. Samples from 1994 were taken with the German RV Poseidon under the research project Eurosquid II. Samples from 2015 and 2016 were taken by the Portuguese RV Noruega under the research project Biometore. Additional samples were taken with German research vessels in oceanic waters surrounding the Azores and the Cape Verde Archipelagos. Cephalopods of these collections were collected with a Pelagic Trawl and Isaacs-Kidd Midwater Trawl (IKMT) to sample mesopelagic and epipelagic adults and juveniles, and Bongo nets to sample paralarvae in the upper 200 m. The early life stages of many cephalopod species are virtually unknown, which makes the taxonomic identification of cephalopods captured by plankton nets very difficult. Furthermore, the identification of early stages of many well-known species is problematic due to strong morphologic similarities between related taxa within each family. Therefore, molecular techniques were used to identify some paralarval specimens in the alcohol preserved samples. Cephalopod distribution is analysed in relation to topographic features in the open ocean, such as seamounts and islands

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