Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Marine Biodiversity, cilt.53, sa.1, 2023 (Scopus)
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung.Ichthyoplankton surveys hold much potential for studying fish biodiversity, but challenges and uncertainties in identification of early life stages and the drifting of planktonic eggs and larvae limit the efficacy of this method. In this study, we investigate mesopelagic fish biodiversity in Antalya Bay in the Northeastern Mediterranean Sea, based on ichthyoplankton samplings in combination with integrative taxonomy and particle backtracking simulations to overcome the forementioned limitations. We morphologically identified early life stages of 26 mesopelagic species and the identification of 17 of them was validated using DNA barcoding. With 13 species identified, Myctophidae was the most diverse family. Larvae of Cyclothone braueri Jespersen & Tåning, 1926, Diaphus holti Tåning, 1918, Ceratoscopelus maderensis (Lowe, 1839) and Cyclothone pygmea Jespersen & Tåning, 1926, constituted the most dominant species in the study area. Based on larval samples, we provided the first record of Paralepis coregonoides Risso, 1820, the first substantiated records of Vinciguerria poweriae (Cocco, 1838) and Hygophum hygomii (Lütken, 1892) and the second record of Evermannella balbo (Risso, 1820) off the Turkish coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Particle backtracking simulations revealed that the spawning grounds of these species were in Antalya Bay, suggesting that there were reproducing populations of these species off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, although these were not properly documented before the present study. Our results demonstrate that ichthyoplankton surveys can provide a reliable practice to study the biodiversity of understudied and difficult to access fish groups when combined with molecular identification techniques and particle backtracking simulations.