Department of Organismic Biology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
PLoS One. 2011;6(8):e22466. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0022466. Epub 2011 Aug 10.
Oligotrichids and choreotrichids are ciliate taxa contributing to the multi-step microbial food web and episodically dominating the marine microzooplankton. The global diversity and distribution of aloricate Oligotrichea are unknown. Here, the geographic ranges of the 141 accepted species and their synonyms in marine and brackish sea water are analyzed, using hundreds of taxonomical and ecological studies; the quality of the records is simultaneously evaluated. The aloricate Oligotrichea match the moderate endemicity model, i.e., the majority (94) of morphospecies has a wide, occasionally cosmopolitan distribution, while 47 morphospecies show biogeographic patterns: they are restricted to single geographic regions and probably include 12 endemic morphospecies. These endemics are found in the Antarctic, North Pacific, and Black Sea, whereas the "flagship" species Strombidinopsis cercionis is confined to the Caribbean Sea. Concerning genera, again several geographic patterns are recognizable. The species richness is distinctly lower in the southern hemisphere than in the northern, ranging from nine morphospecies in the South Pacific to 95 in the North Atlantic; however, this pattern is probably caused by undersampling. Since the loss of species might affect higher trophical levels substantially, the aloricate Oligotrichea should not any longer be ignored in conservation issues. The ecophysiological diversity is considerably larger than the morphological, and even tops the richness of SSrRNA and ITS haplotypes, indicating that probably more than 83-89% of the diversity in aloricate Oligotrichea are unknown. The huge challenge to discover all these species can only be managed by combining the expertises of morphological taxonomists, molecular biologists, ecologists, and physiologists.
寡毛类和 choreotrichids 是纤毛类生物，为多步骤微生物食物网做出贡献，并间歇性地主导海洋微型浮游动物。全球 aloricate Oligotrichea 的多样性和分布尚不清楚。在这里，使用数百项分类学和生态学研究，分析了海洋和半咸水水域中 141 种已接受的物种及其同义词的地理范围；同时评估了记录的质量。aloricate Oligotrichea 符合中度特有性模型，即大多数（94）形态种具有广泛的、偶尔世界性的分布，而 47 个形态种表现出生物地理模式：它们局限于单个地理区域，可能包括 12 个特有形态种。这些特有种分布在南极、北太平洋和黑海，而“旗舰”物种 Strombidinopsis cercionis 局限于加勒比海。关于属，再次可以识别出几个地理模式。南半球的物种丰富度明显低于北半球，从南太平洋的 9 个形态种到北大西洋的 95 个形态种；然而，这种模式可能是由于采样不足造成的。由于物种的丧失可能会对更高的营养级产生重大影响，因此在保护问题上，aloricate Oligotrichea 不应再被忽视。生态生理多样性明显大于形态多样性，甚至超过 SSrRNA 和 ITS 单倍型的丰富度，这表明 aloricate Oligotrichea 中可能有超过 83-89%的多样性未知。要发现所有这些物种，唯一的办法是结合形态分类学家、分子生物学家、生态学家和生理学家的专业知识。
