1. |
- Jörger, Katharina, et al.
(författare)
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MEIOZORES 2019 - EXPLORING THE MARINE MEIOFAUNA OF THE AZORES
- 2021
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Ingår i: AÇOREANA. ; , s. 17-41
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In July 2019 an international team of 39 senior and junior researchers from ninecountries met at the University of the Azores in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel for a 10-daysworkshop/ 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 andrhabdocoel 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.
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2. |
- Leasi, Francesca, et al.
(författare)
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Biodiversity estimates and ecological interpretations of meiofaunal communities are biased by the taxonomic approach
- 2018
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Nature Publishing. - 2399-3642. ; 112
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accurate assessments of biodiversity are crucial to advising ecosystem-monitoring programs and understanding ecosystem function. Nevertheless, a standard operating procedure to assess biodiversity accurately and consistently has not been established. This is especially true for meiofauna, a diverse community (>20 phyla) of small benthic invertebrates that have fundamental ecological roles. Recent studies show that metabarcoding is a cost-effective and time-effective method to estimate meiofauna biodiversity, in contrast to morphological-based taxonomy. Here, we compare biodiversity assessments of a diverse meiofaunal community derived by applying multiple taxonomic methods based on comparative morphology, molecular phylogenetic analysis, DNA barcoding of individual specimens, and metabarcoding of environmental DNA. We show that biodiversity estimates are strongly biased across taxonomic methods and phyla. Such biases affect understanding of community structures and ecological interpretations. This study supports the urgency of improving aspects of environmental high-throughput sequencing and the value of taxonomists in correctly understanding biodiversity estimates.
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