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Novel distribution records of marine Tardigrada from abyssal sediments of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean

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Abstract

Four species of marine tardigrades were found in deep sea sediment samples of the Newfoundland Basin in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Samples were collected during expedition SO286 at more than 3000 m depth in an abyssal area that belongs to the intended new marine protected area “North Atlantic Current and Evlanov Seamount” (NACES). The genus Coronarctus was represented by two specimens of C. dissimilis. The genus Angursa was represented by four specimens of A. capsula, five specimens of A. abyssalis, and one specimen of A. lanceolata. In order to investigate the morphology and morphometry, we primarily used light microscopy with differential interference contrast. However, some specimens were additionally investigated with confocal laser scanning and scanning electron microscopy. The morphological and morphometric details and the new geographic records of the four identified species increase our knowledge of the taxonomy and biogeography of marine tardigrades. For C. dissimilis and A. lanceolata, the new records could indicate a pan-Atlantic distribution for both species, which were so far only known from the South Atlantic Ocean. The new record of A. capsula is even more remarkable since that species was so far only known from its type locality in the East Pacific deep sea.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the OBIS repository “link to dataset will be inserted after acceptance”.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to people involved in collecting the samples, in particular the crew of R/V SONNE and the scientific team of expedition SO286/IceDivA2. The expedition was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Sorting and identification of higher-level taxa by Lukas Münter and Milena S. Kieneke is also highly acknowledged. Many thanks also to Prof. Reinhardt M. Kristensen for his support in species determination. The authors would like to thank all the people from Ukraine, Germany, and Poland who are concerned and without whom this article could not have been published. We thank all the people who are working for the free practice of science in Ukraine and in all other places in the world where this right is threatened. This is publication number 67 that uses data from the Senckenberg am Meer Confocal Laserscanning Microscope Facility (SGN-SaM-cLSM).

Funding

This study was enabled through support of the “Matching Fonds” of the Leibniz Association and by a stipend of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung (SGN) and a follow-up stipend of the Deutsche Bundes-Umweltstiftung (DBU) to R.T.

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  1. VN Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkiv, Ukraine

    Roman Trokhymchuk

  2. German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research, Senckenberg am Meer, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Roman Trokhymchuk & Alexander Kieneke

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  1. Roman Trokhymchuk
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R.T.: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, investigation, validation, visualization, writing; A.K.: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, investigation, validation, visualization, writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Roman Trokhymchuk.

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Trokhymchuk, R., Kieneke, A. Novel distribution records of marine Tardigrada from abyssal sediments of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Org Divers Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-024-00641-2

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