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Meiozores 2019 - Exploring the marine meiofauna of the Azores

Vitenskapelig artikkel
Publiseringsår
2021
Tidsskrift
Açoreana : revista de estudos açoreanos
Eksterne nettsted
Cristin
Forfattere
Katharina M. Jörger, Nuno V. Alvaro, Luiz F. Andrade, Thiago O. Araujo, Victor Aramayo, Tom Artois, William Ballentine, Franziska S. Bergmeier, Andrea Z. Bothelho, Ariane Buckenmeyer, Ana T. Capucho, Irina Cherneva, Marco Curini-Galletti, Anitha M. Davison, Wang Deng, Maikon Di Domenico, Christina Ellison, Jan Engelhardt, Maria Fais, Diego Fontaneto, Duarte G. Frade, Antonio M. de Frias Martins, Freya Goetz, Rick Hochberg, Alberto de Jesus-Navarrete, Ulf Jondelius, Ylva Jondelius, Nina Luckas, Alejandro Martinez Garcia, Anna Mikhlina, Timea P. Neusser, Jon L. Norenburg, Juan Pardo, Antonio Peixoto, Nickellaus Roberts, Alexandra Savchenko, Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa, Lenke Tödter, Meghan Yap-Chiongco, Ana Cristina Ricardo Costa

Sammendrag

In July 2019 an international team of 39 senior and junior researchers from nine countries met at the University of the Azores in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel for a 10-days workshop/summer school to explore the meiofaunal biodiversity in marine sediments of the Azores. In total, we sampled intertidal and subtidal sediments from 54 localities on 14 major sites around São Miguel and additionally explored eight freshwater and terrestrial sites for rotifers. We sorted and investigated more than 2000 living specimens in the field, yielding approximately 180 species of soft-bodied meiofauna, representing most major clades of meiofauna with a focus on nematodes, polychaete annelids, proseriate and rhabdocoel flatworms, gastrotrichs, acoelomorphs, nemerteans, molluscs and cnidarians. Most of the encountered diversity shows similarities to the North-East Atlantic continental meiofauna, but in-depth morphological and molecular analyses are still pending. About 60 of the 180 species could not be assigned a species-level identification in the field, and nearly 15% of the total diversity is expected to be new to science and is awaiting formal description. Herein, we present an overview of the results of the workshop, providing detailed information on the sampling sites, methodology and encountered diversity, and we offer a preliminary discussion on aspects of faunal elements shared with other biogeographic regions. We highlight the most common members of the marine meiofauna of the Azores, provide preliminary diversity estimates and suggest a roadmap for future research towards a better understanding of the meiofauna in this remote archipelago.