Hyper-cryptic marine meiofauna: species complexes in Nemertodermatida

Inga Meyer-Wachsmuth; Marco Curini Galletti; Ulf Jondelius

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107688

Hyper-cryptic marine meiofauna: species complexes in Nemertodermatida

PLoS One. 2014 Sep 16;9(9):e107688. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107688. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Inga Meyer-Wachsmuth¹, Marco Curini Galletti², Ulf Jondelius¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Zoology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
² Dipartimento di Scienze della Natura e del Territorio, Università di Sassari, Sassari, Italy.

Abstract

Nemertodermatida are microscopically small, benthic marine worms. Specimens of two nominal species, Sterreria psammicola and Nemertinoides elongatus from 33 locations worldwide were sequenced for three molecular markers. Species delimitation and validation was done using gene trees, haplotype networks and multilocus Bayesian analysis. We found 20 supported species of which nine: Nemertinoides glandulosum n.sp., N. wolfgangi n.sp., Sterreria boucheti n.sp., S. lundini n.sp., S. martindalei n.sp., S. monolithes n.sp., S. papuensis n.sp., S. variabilis n.sp. and S. ylvae n.sp., are described including nucleotide-based diagnoses. The distribution patterns indicate transoceanic dispersal in some of the species. Sympatric species were found in many cases. The high level of cryptic diversity in this meiofauna group implies that marine diversity may be higher than previously estimated.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Aquatic Organisms / classification*
Aquatic Organisms / genetics
Biodiversity*
Geography
Haplotypes
Multilocus Sequence Typing
Phylogeny
Reproducibility of Results

Grants and funding

IMW received funding from the Föreningen Riksmusei vänner (riksmuseivanner.se) stipend 2011, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (http://www.kva.se/) grant application FOA11H-352, the Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Minne (http://www.larshiertasminne.se), grant FO2011-0248 and the Systematics Association (www.systass.org), Research Fund 2010/2011. MCG received ASSEMBLE grants for on-sitework (www.assemblemarine.org/). UJ also received ASSEMBLE grants for on-site work (www.assemblemarine.org/) and was funded by the Swedish research council (Vetenskapsrådet, http://www.vr.se) grant 2012-3913. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.