Name: Diversity of hydrothermal vent macrofaunal communities along the southwestern Pacific back-arc basins
Published: 2019
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: Benthic species, hydrothermal vent macrofauna, deep-sea, invertebrates, Southwest Pacific, Back-arc Basins, Bathymodiolus, Ifremeria, Alviniconcha, biodiversity distribution

This dataset provided a list of hydrothermal vent taxa indentified in the Southwest Pacific. Vent community samples were collected at four back-arc basins (Manus, Woodlark, North Fiji and Lau) and one volcanic arc (Futuna) during the CHUBACARC oceanographic cruise (March-June 2019) on board of the French Research Vessel L’Atalante. Three vent habitats located from low to high diffuse flow areas and identified according to their dominant engineer species were sampled: the Bathymodiolus, the Ifremeria and the Alviniconcha assemblages. Engineer species were collected using the hydraulic arm of the ROV Victor6000 and placed in a thermally isolated box. When possible, sampling was completed with a suction device to collect the associated small organisms and mobile epifauna. A total of 60 samples (box collections) were obtained, 42 of which included suction sampling. On board, samples were washed through a 250 µm sieve with filtered seawater to collect all the fauna. This fauna was sorted and preserved in 96% ethanol. In the laboratory, individuals were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible, in general the morphospecies.

Disciplines

Biological oceanography

Keywords

Benthic species, hydrothermal vent macrofauna, deep-sea, invertebrates, Southwest Pacific, Back-arc Basins, Bathymodiolus, Ifremeria, Alviniconcha, biodiversity distribution

Location

0N, -26S, 190E, 140W

Licence

Acknowledgements

We thank the captain and crew of the RV L’Atalante and the ROV Victor6000 team for their work at sea. We also thank the entire CHUBACARC scientific team, especially T. Comtet, T. Broquet, S. L’Haridon, L. Michel and V. Le Layec for their support in sorting samples on board, as well as E-J. Pernet and M. Le Pans for their assistance in sorting samples at the Brest Ifremer deep-sea laboratory. Thanks to J. Castel, V. Cueff-Gauchard, A. Tran Lu Y, and A. Chabert for sharing barcoding data produced as part of the ANR Cerberus project, and to all those involved in producing this dataset: C. Daguin-Thiébaut, A-S. Le Port, M. Ballenghien, S. Ruault, S. Arnaud-Haond, F. Bonhomme and P-A. Gagnaire. We also thank C. Chen for confirming some gastropod species identifications. This work was supported by the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR): project CERBERUS (contract number ANR-17-CE02- 0003; https://anr.fr/). CP was funded by Ph.D grants from the ANR CERBERUS and Ifremer. Participation to the research cruise also benefitted from the French Oceanographic Fleet.

Devices

This data set include: the sample identification number (Sample_ID); the name of the back-arc basin or volcanic arc, vent field and site it came from (Basin, Field, Site); the ROV Victor6000 dive number (Dive); geographic coordinates; Depth (m); the habitat from which the sample was collected (i.e. Bathymodiolus, Ifremeria or Alviniconcha); The sampler ID and type (i.e. boxes or from the suction device of the ROV); classification (i.e. Phylum, Class, Family and Genera) and Taxa name; and the number of individuals in the sample for each taxa (Nb).

Data

File	Size	Format	Processing	Access	end of embargo
Data	255 Ko	CSV	Processed data		2025-09-26

Sea scientific
open data
publication

Diversity of hydrothermal vent macrofaunal communities along the southwestern Pacific back-arc basins

Disciplines

Keywords

Location

Devices

Data

Sea scientific
open data
publication

Diversity of hydrothermal vent macrofaunal communities along the southwestern Pacific back-arc basins

Disciplines

Keywords

Location

Devices

Data

Sea scientificopen datapublication

Sea scientific
open data
publication