Biodiversity associated to the sponges and algae of the sculptures of the Underwater Museum of Art (“MUSA”), Cancún, Mexico.
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Abstract
The famous Underwater Museum of Art or MUSA (>520 sculptures, 4-8m depth), located between Isla Mujeres and Cancún, Mexico, in a National Marine Park, helps in relieving tourist pressure on the worldwide-known reefs of the area, since many divers visit it annually (around 400 000). The hard substrate created by the sculptures enhances the area biodiversity by at least 16-20-fold (Rugosity measures). We compared the macrofauna associated to the dominant algae (Lobophora variegata and Dictyota bartraryresii) and sponge (Amphimedon compressa) growing on the sculptures and their variations with time. The two algae also have annual cycles and dominate at different times of the year, affecting their associated fauna. Samplings (quadrats 20X20cm) with SCUBA diving were made from March 2014 to February 2015. For this study, we identified 2064 marine invertebrates of the four main macrofauna groups: Crustaceans dominated with 1098 (53%), followed by Polychaetes: 401 (19%), Echinoderms: 325 (16%) and Mollusks: 240 (12%). Among the latter, the gastropod Cerithium litteratum dominated overwhelmingly accounting for 75% of all the Mollusks. Ophiactis sp. (158 orgs, 49%) and Ophiactis savignyi (64 orgs, 20%) dominated among Echinoderms, amphipods among Crustaceans (705 organisms, 64.2%), syllids (110 orgs, 27%) and sabellids (104 orgs, 26%) among Polychaetes. Other groups such as Sipunculans, Ascidians, Corals and Hydroids accounted for less than 1% and were not found in the sponge. Inside the sponge, Echinoderms, all juveniles, dominate overwhelmingly (93% of all Echinoderms were found there), Crustaceans follow. Polychaetes and Mollusks were almost as abundant in algae and sponge. This dominating sponge species constitutes a better shelter and probably also good feeding grounds for some macrofauna, especially Ophiuroids. C. litteratum, and the echinoids, being herbivorous, thrive preferably in the algal environment, especially L. variegata, and were never found in sponges, also the case for all large invertebrates.
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2018. Biodiversity associated to the sponges and algae of the sculptures of the Underwater Museum of Art (“MUSA”), Cancún, Mexico. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26548v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26548v1Author comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints. The full results and discussion will be presented at the 4th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests
Author Contributions
Vivianne Solis-Weiss conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Arturo Toledano-Granados performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper.
Jaime Gonzalez-Cano performed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, obtained permits, logistics, government help.
Nikita Jost performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
The research in this article did not generate any data or code.
Funding
This work was supported by the Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, UNAM (soft money of first author). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.