Oceans Centre, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand.
PeerJ. 2023 Mar 6;11:e14867. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14867. eCollection 2023.
Little is known about the taxonomy of deep-sea nematode species inhabiting cold seep habitats. An opportunity to characterize the nematode species communities of New Zealand cold seeps was provided by a 2019 research voyage to New Zealand's Hikurangi Margin, during which macrofauna cores were obtained at two seeps at approximately 1,250 and 2,000 m water depth. Here, six new species of the orderEnoplida are described. sp. nov. represents the first record of the genus for the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone and for the deep sea globally. sp. nov., sp. nov. and sp. nov. are only the second species of their respective genera to be described/recorded from New Zealand waters, and sp. nov. is the eighth species of the genus to be recorded from the region. sp. nov. was among the most abundant and widespread species found at the Hikurangi Margin seep sites. A few specimens had been found in a previous ecological study of meiofaunal nematode communities on Chatham Rise, a submarine ridge south of Hikurangi Margin. It is possible that this species has a preference for seep environments due to elevated food availability, however it does not seem to be exclusively found in seeps. We find no evidence for an affinity between nematode seep communities in New Zealand and elsewhere, which is consistent with the high variability in nematode community observed to date among regions. Ongoing work on the ecology and distribution of nematode communities at the Hikurangi Margin seep sites will help determine spatial patterns in abundance and species distributions in more detail, including the identification of any species/taxa with affinities with seeps.
关于栖息在冷渗栖息地的深海线虫物种的分类学知之甚少。2019 年对新西兰 Hikurangi 边缘的一次研究航行提供了一个机会，可以描述新西兰冷渗的线虫物种群落，在这次航行中，在大约 1250 和 2000 米水深的两个渗口获得了大型动物岩芯。在这里，描述了六个新的 Enoplida 目物种。 sp. nov. 代表该属在新西兰专属经济区和全球深海的首次记录。 sp. nov.、 sp. nov. 和 sp. nov. 是各自属的第二个被描述/记录在新西兰水域的物种，而 sp. nov. 是该属在该地区记录的第八个物种。 sp. nov. 是在 Hikurangi 边缘渗口地点发现的最丰富和分布最广的物种之一。在对 Hikurangi 边缘南部海底脊 Chatham Rise 的中型线虫群落进行的先前生态研究中，已经发现了一些标本。由于食物供应增加，这种物种可能更喜欢渗口环境，但似乎并不专门存在于渗口。我们没有发现新西兰和其他地方的线虫渗口群落之间有亲和力的证据，这与迄今为止在不同地区观察到的线虫群落高度可变性一致。正在进行的关于 Hikurangi 边缘渗口线虫群落的生态学和分布的工作将有助于更详细地确定丰度和物种分布的空间模式，包括确定任何与渗口有亲缘关系的物种/分类群。
