Benthic biota of CIMAR-Fiordos and Southern Ice Field Cruises

The CIMAR program (Marine Research Cruises to Remote Areas), run by the Chilean Navy, has been developed since 1995, focused on Chilean fjord and channel zones (~41-56°S; “CIMAR-Fiordos”) and Chilean remote islands (“CIMAR-Islands”). In all these cruises, information has been collected on biotic and abiotic variables, both from the water column and benthos. Our work standardizes, compiles and summarizes the published information on benthic organisms for twenty-one CIMAR-Fiordos cruises, developed in the first 25 years of the program, plus the Campos de Hielo Sur 1995 campaign (precursor of the CIMAR program), in which their distribution, abundance, and specific collection points, given by the different stations worked by these cruises. The data set includes 8,854 records from 880 different localities, corresponding to 1,225 species from 24 different phyla (four kingdoms) and more than 150,000 individuals. Only in two cruises no benthic organisms were recorded. The fjords and channels of Chilean Patagonia have a high biodiversity, so we hope that our data set will serve as a baseline for ecological studies and ecosystem conservation.