Living foraminiferal assemblages in two submarine canyons (Polcevera and Bisagno) of the Ligurian Basin (Italy)

Recently the scientific interest is focused on the deep marine ecosystem because they can play an important role to recycle of the global carbon cycle. Particularly the submarine canyons act as sediment and organic matter traps into which material originating from the continental shelf is conveyed (Van Weering et al., 2002). Therefore, canyons, compared to the adjacent continental slope, represent areas characterized by more eutrophic conditions. This study is part of the RITMARE Project: BioLig - Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and pelagic-benthic coupling in Ligurian submarine canyons. In this work two types of environmental settings (from 200 to 2000 m depth) were investigated: the Polcevera and Bisagno canyons and the adjacent open slopes (Ligurian Sea). Living (Rose Bengal stained) and total benthic foraminiferal assemblages, collected by mean box corer, were analyzed and processed by statistical analyses (Cluster Analyses). The data results highlight different foraminiferal a

Recently the scientific interest is focused on the deep marine ecosystem because they can play an important role to recycle of the global carbon cycle. Particularly the submarine canyons act as sediment and organic matter traps into which material originating from the continental shelf is conveyed (Van Weering et al., 2002). Therefore, canyons, compared to the adjacent continental slope, represent areas characterized by more eutrophic conditions. This study is part of the RITMARE Project: BioLig - Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and pelagic-benthic coupling in Ligurian submarine canyons. In this work two types of environmental settings (from 200 to 2000 m depth) were investigated: the Polcevera and Bisagno canyons and the adjacent open slopes (Ligurian Sea). Living (Rose Bengal stained) and total benthic foraminiferal assemblages, collected by mean box corer, were analyzed and processed by statistical analyses (Cluster Analyses). The data results highlight different foraminiferal assemblages in slope and canyon areas due to the quantity and quality of organic matter fluxes. The main difference consists of high frequencies of Bolivina spp., typical low oxygen taxa, in canyon sites. Moreover a comparison between the benthic foraminiferal assemblages of the studied sites and other canyons in the Atlantic (Nardelli et al., 2010) and Mediterranean basins (Schmiedl et al., 2000), showed similarities in compositional and structural features.