Bathyal ostracods from the Santa Maria di Leuca deep–water coral province (Northern Ionian Sea)

Living and dead deep-water ostracods from different sites and habitats of the Cold Water Coral Province off Santa Maria di Leuca have been investigated. A total of 42 ostracod taxa were determined, 34 of which at species level and 8 at genus level. The living associations comprise only two species: Bairdoppilata conformis and Bythocypris obtusata. The same species form dead associations together with Henryhowella ex H. hirta group, Macropyxis adriatica, Bythocypris bosquetiana, Pseudocythere caudata, Bathycythere vanstraateni and Cytheropteron testudo. The analysis of dead assemblages, which includes species such as Bathycythere vanstraateni, Cytheropteron testudo, and Bythocythere mylaensis - taxa no longer thriving in the Recent Mediterranean Sea - allowed us to determine that an old component of the ostracod assemblages of the “Santa Maria di Leuca Cold Water Coral Province” seemingly lived during the last cold period of the Late Pleistocene or its transition to the Holocene. Furthermore, the high species richness and specimen abundance, recorded in some samples, might be related to a local increase in the availability of trophic resources at the bottom surface related to the general circulation and to the presence of deep coral bioconstructions. The presence of a few carapaces of species with shallower distributions seems related to post mortem displacement events.