Species composition, distribution and relative abundance of the inshore fish community off the Argentine Islands, Bellingshausen Sea

Abstract

In the last three decades, several interdisciplinary studies investigated the marine ecosystems off the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), one of the most impacted areas of the Southern Ocean by the global warming. Although the extent of near-shore habitats along the WAP is wider than elsewhere in Antarctica, the coastal fish communities have been rarely studied. Complementing these previous studies, we provide new data on the species composition, population structure and relative abundance of the inshore fish community living off the Argentine Islands (Bellingshausen Sea). Fish samples were caught all the year round during four different periods spread over ten years (from 2006 to 2017). The fish fauna consisted of fourteen high-Antarctic and low-Antarctic species of notothenioids, most of them belonging to the Nototheniidae. Notothenia coriiceps was by far the most abundant species, followed in decreasing abundance by Chaenocephalus aceratus, Notothenia rossii, Trematomus newnesi and Trematomus bernacchii. Our findings provide context for future ecological studies as this area represents either a spawning and nursery area for multiple species in this study. More generally, the inshore waters off the Argentine Islands represent the southern limit of distribution for several low-Antarctic species, and our results provide critical baseline data for assessing possible disruptions in population dynamics driven by the ongoing climate change.