Mysidacea (Crustacea) in the Faroe area: Reyðæti av slagnum Mysidacea á landgrunninum

Abstract

Investigations on the marine benthic fauna of the Faroe Fishery Territory started in 1987 as a Nordic programme called BIOFAR with sampling efforts concentrated on depths deeper than 100 m. After'the BIOFAR samplíng was concluded in 1993, a new programme called BIOFAR 2 started in 1995 to sample the marine benthic fauna from the intertidal to 100 m depth. Before BIOFAR only 16 mysíd specíes had been reported from the Faroese Fishery Territory. The BIOFAR sampling increased the number of species to 34. For each species the following information is given: the valid name with author and publication year, synonyms, reference to a good description, previous Faroese records, the BIOFAR stations where it was found, area descriptions, depth range, measured temperature range or estimated temperature range of the near-bottom water,
the type of water mass in which the specimens were caught, and short notes on the distribution and the depth range of the species in the Atlantic Ocean. Twenty-seven species have a hyperbenthic life style, five are meso- or bathypelagic, and two are benthopelagic. Six species are most often recorded from the Faroe plateau or the tops of the banks (0-299 m), 16-18 species seem to be slope (300-999 m) species, and 10-12 species are mostly or only caught in deep water (> 1000 m). Eighteen species are mostly confined to water dominated by «warm» Atlantic Water (> 7 °C), seven species are mostly confined to water dominated by cold bottom water of the Norwegian Sea (< 0 °C) or Arctic Intermediate Water (1.5-3.5 °C), and nine species are
mainly found in well mixed water masses.