Meeting Abstract
Kristian, like myself, loved polychaetes. Of all the polychaetes in the world, Kristian quite rightly thought that Diopatra was the most wonderful. He was always willing to think about them, no matter how twisted your perspective. Diopatra biscayensis is the last Diopatra that Kristian Fauchald described. I suspect he did it as a favor, and because he loved them, and it was an opportunity to annoy the ghost of Fauvel. When first discovered, D. biscayensis was thought to have a continuous distribution from Aracachon in southern France to the Brittany peninsula. More recent work has revealed its distribution to extend south as far as San Vicente de la Barquera, on the northern coast of Spain (Arias and Paxton 2015). Fascinatingly, D. biscayensis also has a discontinuous population more than 500 km beyond its northern limit in the Bay of Biscay. D. biscayensis achieves densities of over 500 m-2 and builds an emergent tube with a L-shaped tubecap with abundant decoration. The southernmost populations are denser than those in the north but with a smaller maximal size. This pattern is repeatable over years, interesting, but unresolved as to causal agent. If Diopatra continues to expand its distribution northward with ocean warming, it may become a major player in determining infaunal shallow water communities on the Atlantic coast of Europe.
