Observations on the deep-water flora of Bermuda

Abstract

Bermuda is the most isolated habitat for seaweeds in the western North Atlantic Ocean and is thus of particular interest to the study of seaweed biogeography and evolution. It is also the northernmost extension of the tropical Western Atlantic phytogeographic region of van den Hoek (1975). The Bermuda pedestal, a seamount rising 4000 meters above the deep ocean floor, is situated approximately 1000 km to the east of the nearest land (Cape Hatteras, North Carolina) at the approximate latitude of Savannah, Georgia. It lies in the Sargasso Sea along the eastern edge of the Florida Current-Gulf Stream system which runs from Florida north along the southeastern coast of the United States and then offshore into the North Atlantic at Cape Hatteras. Bermuda is thus in a position to receive contributions of seaweeds transported by oceanic currents from southern, tropical latitudes.