The benthos of Northwest Africa | Oceanographic and biological features in the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem.
2015
Ramos, Ana | Ramil, Fran | Mohamed, Sidi | Barry, Amadou O. | Valdés, L. | Déniz-González, I.
Despite to play a key role in the marine ecosystems and to be under serious threat, the knowledge on the benthos of the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem is currently scarce and comes from the historical expeditions carried out in the region after the end of 19th century. Results of the last Spanish and regional Norwegian surveys show that it does not seem to exist a latitudinal pattern of the biodiversity along the Northwest African coast and that the highest diversity values are located off Western Sahara. Although an important faunistic boundary between tropical and temperate biota seems to be located at Cape Blanc latitude, epibenthic communities maintain a similar structure throughout the region. Decapods are the most representative group in terms of richness, abundance and biomass, being echinoderms, mainly holothuroids, clearly dominant in deep waters. Despite having endured an intense fishing pressure for more than 50 years, suspension-feeder assemblages and vulnerable ecosystems — as the giant cold-water coral reef, the canyon systems, the seamount and the grounds of sponges and gorgonians — already exist in deep waters of the continental slope in Mauritania, Western Sahara and Morocco.
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