Sifonóforos (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) del Mar Caribe mexicano (agosto, 1986)

Abstract

Thirty-one species of siphonophores were identified from 28 zooplankton samples colected during the ARCOMM I cruise, carried out in the in the epipelagic zone off the Mexican Caribbean coast (August, 1986) on board the B/O "Justo Sierra", of the UNAM. Zooplankton samples were collected using a standard net with a 0.5 mm filtering mesh, hauled from varible depths (9-220 m). The most abundant species were: Eudoxoides mitra (21% of total siphonophore numbers), Diphyes bojani (19.3%), Chelophyes appendiculata (14.3%), Abylopsis eschscholtzi (12.3%) and A. tetragona (10.5%). Overall mean abundance of siphonophores was 1568 Ind./1000m3, which is a low value when compared with other Western Atlantic areas. The most frequent species were E. mitra (in 96% of the stations), A. eschscholtzi (93%), and C. appendiculata and D. bojani (86%). Mean diversity (3.34 bits ind.-1), was relatively low when compared with the Yucatan Shelf and the southern Gulf of Mexico. The shiphonophore community structure appears to be homogeneous in this area.