Document of bibliographic reference 354728

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Cosmopolitism, rareness and endemism in deep-sea marine nematodes

Abstract

Nematodes represent the most abundant benthic metazoan of all seas and oceans, and their relative importance increases with increasing water depth. Understanding the biodiversity patterns of this dominant phylum could be a critical step towards our comprehension of the evolutionary patterns across the largest biome of the biosphere. For instance, it has been assumed for a long time that nematodes are ubiquitous across depths, latitudes and biogeographic regions, but there is still little scientific evidence for this lack of endemism. The present study is based on a meta-analysis of nematode biodiversity data collected from 246 deep-sea sites of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. We explored the cosmopolitanism, rareness and potential endemism of nematode genera in deep-sea sediments. The results of this analysis indicate that only one-third of nematode families are widely distributed and could potentially be cosmopolitan, whereas 94% of the nematode genera are linked to specific habitats or bathymetric ranges. Singleton nematode genera (i.e. genera presenting as a single individual only in one specific habitat) increased in importance with increasing water depth. We conclude that rareness and endemism may be a far more common feature than previously thought in deep-sea nematode assemblages and hypothesise that the deep ocean interior could be a huge reservoir of endemic nematode species.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000799233500001

Bibliographic citation

Danovaro, R.; Gambi, C. (2022). Cosmopolitism, rareness and endemism in deep-sea marine nematodes. The European Zoological Journal 89(1): 653-665. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/24750263.2022.2040621

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true