Crustaceans Associated with Cold Water Corals: A Comparison of the North Atlantic and North Pacific Octocoral Assemblages

Abstract

Crustaceans live on large colonial invertebrates for a variety of reasons, but in all cases must overcome the defenses of the host animal. We surveyed the crustaceans living on deep-sea octocorals collected during expeditions to the New England and Corner Rise seamounts (2003–2005) in the Northwest Atlantic and to the Aleutian Ridge (2004) in the North Pacific. Only a small number of crustacean species were found on octocorals in the Northwest Atlantic but a great many species, especially amphipods, were found on octocorals in the Northwest Pacific. We suggest that this disparity is due to both the differences in octocoral host dominance as well as differences in the available species pool between the two oceans.