Meeting Abstract

P1.16  Sunday, Jan. 4  Playing in the mud: Cumacea (Crustacea) of the Comau Fjord, Chile GERKEN, S.; University of Alaska, Anchorage sarah.gerken@uaa.alaska.edu

Cumaceans are small, benthic marine crustaceans that are commonly encountered in mud and soft sand substrates, at depths from the intertidal to deep-sea trenches. As peracarid crustaceans, cumaceans brood their young in a pouch on the ventral surface of the body, with the young directly developing into small copies of the adults. Distributions tend to be patchy and seasonal, although cumaceans can be extremely abundant. Cumaceans are frequently recorded as part of the diets of bottom feeding fish and shore birds. However, very little is known about these organisms, including total diversity, biogeography, ecology, etc. Recent benthic sled collections in the Comau Fjord and connected smaller fjords yielded 11 cumacean species in 7 genera, from 3 families. At each sample site, from 1-9 species were collected. Many of the populations were reproductive, with adult males and eggs in the brood pouches of the females. No specimens were collected via light trapping (usually a successful collection method), despite several attempts and prominent eye lobes present in some of the species.