[ View Brief Record ] [ Get Data ] [ Update this Record ]

Summary

From the abstract of one of the papers:

A study was made of the sub-littoral benthic environment of Ellis Fjord, a 10km-long fjord located near Davis Station, in the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica, over a 15 month period (November 1984 to February 1986). Data were collected by SCUBA diving and underwater photography and were initially analysed by ordination techniques ... (non-metric multidimensional scaling). Ordinations showed substratum type to be the factor most strongly associated with changes in the distribution and abundance of macrobenthic species within the fjord. Other factors shown to be associated with changes in macrobenthic species assemblages were depth, distance from the fjord mouth, bottom slope, shoreline characteristics, current speed, and the presence of low-salinity water at shallow depths during the summer melt. The four major substratum types in Ellis Fjord were sand, rock, Serpula narconensis colonies and Phyllophora antarctica thalli. S. narconensis colonies supported the most species and sand substrata supported the least. P. antarctica is the only macrophyte species which occurred in the fjord. S. narconensis colonies in Ellis Fjord form one of the largest known tubeworm reefs in the world. The assemblages of benthic species in Ellis Fjord were different from those seen at other sub-littoral benthic sites off the Vestfold Hills, and at other Antarctic sites. There was a far greater proportion of filter-feeding species in the fjord than at other sub-littoral benthic sites off the Vestfold Hills. Factors which are thought to have caused these differences are the high level of organic but low level of inorganic input into the benthic system of the fjord, and the absence of anchor ice from the fjord.

The fields in this dateset are:
species
species density
site
sample

Geographic Coverage Spatial coordinates   

N: -69.15		S: -69.52		E: 76.4		W: 75.75
Min Depth: 2 METRES Max Depth: 31 METRES

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 1984-11-01 Stop Date: 1986-02-28

Location Keywords

CONTINENT > ANTARCTICA > ELLIS FJORD GEOGRAPHIC REGION > POLAR

Science Keywords

BIOSPHERE > AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS > PLANKTON > ZOOPLANKTON BIOSPHERE > AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS > BENTHIC HABITAT OCEANS > COASTAL PROCESSES > FJORDS BIOSPHERE > AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS > MARINE HABITAT

ISO Topic Category

BIOTA INLAND WATERS OCEANS

Platform

FIELD SURVEYS

Quality

The diver made sure not to touch the bottom during the surveys so as not to disturb the assemblages or the sediment (and thus obscure his view).

Access Constraints

PDF's of some papers, as well as excel spreadsheets of data, are available for download from the url given below.

Ancillary Keywords

ECOLOGY FJORDS SAMPLE SITE SPECIES SPECIES DENSITY

Data Set Progress

COMPLETE

Data Center

Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australia Data Center URL: http://data.aad.gov.au Data Center Personnel Name: DATA OFFICER AADC Phone: +61 3 6232 3244 Fax: +61 3 6232 3351 Email: metadata at aad.gov.au Contact Address: Australian Antarctic Division 203 Channel Highway City: Kingston Province or State: Tasmania Postal Code: 7050 Country: Australia

Distribution

Distribution Media: HTTP Distribution Size: 5730 kb Distribution Format: excel, pdf Fees: Free

Personnel

JOHN KIRKWOOD Role: INVESTIGATOR Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT Role: DIF AUTHOR Phone: +61 7 38179587 Fax: +61 7 3817 9555 Email: kirkwoj at dpi.qld.gov.au Contact Address: SOUTHERN FISHERIES RESEARCH CENTRE PO BOX 76 DEPT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRY City: DECEPTION BAY Province or State: Queensland Postal Code: 4508 Country: Australia

Related URL

Link: GET DATA Description: Download point for the data Link: VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE Description: Public information for ASAC project 379 Link: VIEW RELATED INFORMATION Description: Citation reference for this metadata record and dataset

Creation and Review Dates

DIF Creation Date: 2000-07-27 Last DIF Revision Date: 2008-04-10

Reformat as FGDC document

View Text Only Format

[ View Brief Record ] [ Get Data ] [ Update this Record ]