Abstract
The diversity of free-living aquatic nematodes is largely unknown for the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. The Cuban Archipelago is an important part of this because of its large area and diversity of habitats. We analyzed the free-living nematodes from 83 sites from seven aquatic habitats around Cuba, to produce a checklist for many habitats, including seagrass meadows, coral degradation zones, algal turf, bare sands, unvegetated muds, freshwater and anchihaline caves, and deep-sea sediments. The checklist contains 469 species, 229 genera, 50 families, and 9 orders. Chromadorida, Enoplida, and Monhysterida were the best represented orders with 112, 100, and 83 species respectively. The most abundant species were Euchromadora vulgaris, Terschellingia longicaudata, Desmodora pontica, Sabatieria pulchra , and Epsilonema sp. Most of the listed species were new records for the region. There were differences in the number of species recorded in each habitat type, with seagrass meadows having 280 species, coral degradation zones having 139 species, deep waters having 116 species, algal turf having 114 species, bare sands having 100 species, unvegetated muds having 78 species, freshwater caves having 19 species, anchihaline caves having 16 species, and freshwater streams having 6 species. The checklist is the most comprehensive recent report of the diversity of free-living nematodes in the regions of Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. The reported diversity is higher than many other regional checklists likely reflecting the intense sampling effort and the variety of microhabitats in Cuban Archipelago.
References
Andrássy, I. (1973) Nematoden aus strand- und höhlenbiotopen von Kuba. Acta Zoologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 19, 233–270.
Ansari, K.G.M.T. & Bhadury, P. (2017) An updated species checklist for free-living marine nematodes from the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem, Sundarbans. Zootaxa, 4290 (1), 177–191.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4290.1.11
Appeltans, W., Ahyong, S.T., Anderson, G., Angel, M.V., Artois, T., Bamber, R., Barber, A., Bartsch, I., Berta, A., Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, M., Bock, P., Boxshall, G., Boyko, C.B., Nunes Brandão, S., Bray, R.A., Bruce, N.L., Cairns, S.D., Chan, T.-Y., Cheng, L., Collins, A.G., Cribb, T., Curini-Galletti, M., Dahdouh-Guebas, F., Davie, P.J.F., Dawson, M.N., De Clerck, O., Decock, W., De Grave, S., de Voogd, N.J., Domning, D.P., Emig, C.C., Erséus, C., Eschmeyer, W., Fauchald, K., Fautin, D.G., Feist, S.W., Fransen, C.H.J.M., Furuya, H., Garcia-Alvarez, O., Gerken, S., Gibson, D., Gittenberger, A., Gofas, S., Gómez-Daglio, L., Gordon, D.P., Guiry, M.D., Hernandez, F., Hoeksema, B.W., Hopcroft, R.R., Jaume, D., Kirk, P., Koedam, N., Koenemann, S., Kolb, J.B., Kristensen, R.M., Kroh, A., Lambert, G., Lazarus, D.B., Lemaitre, R., Longshaw, M., Lowry, J., Macpherson, E., Madin, L.P., Mah, C., Mapstone, G., McLaughlin, P.A., Mees, J., Meland, K., Messing, C.G., Mills, C.E., Molodtsova, T.N., Mooi, R., Neuhaus, B., Ng, P.K.L., Nielsen, C., Norenburg, J., Opresko, D.M., Osawa, M., Paulay, G., Perrin, W., Pilger, J.F., Poore, G.C.B., Pugh, P., Read, G.B., Reimer, J.D., Rius, M., Rocha, R.M., Saiz-Salinas, J.I., Scarabino, V., Schierwater, B., Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., Schnabel, K.E., Schotte, M., Schuchert, P., Schwabe, E., Segers, H., Self-Sullivan, C., Shenkar, N., Siegel, V., Sterrer, W., Stöhr, S., Swalla, B., Tasker, M.L., Thuesen, E.V., Timm, T., Todaro, M.A., Turon, X., Tyler, S., Uetz, P., van der Land, J., Vanhoorne, B., van Ofwegen, L.P., van Soest, R.W.M., Vanaverbeke, J., Walker-Smith, G., Walter, T.C., Warren, A., Williams, G.C., Simon P. Wilson, S.P. & Costello, M.J. (2012) The magnitude of global marine species diversity. Current Biology, 22, 1–14.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.036
Armenteros, M., del Pino-Machado, A., González-González, S., Ruiz-Abierno, A. & Pérez-García, J.A. (2014) Depth-related diversity patterns of free-living nematode assemblages on two tropical rocky shores. Revista de Investigaciones Marinas, 34, 49–63.
Armenteros, M. & Ruiz-Abierno, A. (2015) Body size distribution of free-living marine nematodes from a Caribbean coral reef. Nematology, 17, 1153–1164.
https://doi.org/10.1163/15685411-00002930
Armenteros, M., Pérez-Angulo, A., Regadera, R., Beltrán, J., Vincx, M. & Decraemer, W. (2009a) Effects of chronic and heavy pollution on macro- and meiobenthos of Havana Bay, Cuba. Revista de Investigaciones Marinas, 30, 203–214.
Armenteros, M., Ruiz-Abierno, A., Fernández-Garcés, R., Pérez-García, J.A., Díaz-Asencio, L., Vincx, M. & Decraemer, W. (2009b) Biodiversity patterns of free-living marine nematodes in a tropical bay: Cienfuegos, Caribbean Sea. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 85, 179–189.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2009.08.002
Armenteros, M., Ruiz-Abierno, A., Sosa, Y. & Pérez-García, J.A. (2012) Habitat heterogeneity effects on macro- and meiofauna (especially nematodes) in Punta Francés coral reef (SW Cuban Archipelago). Revista de Investigaciones Marinas, 32, 50–61.
Besteiro, C. & Ayora, M. (2017) Checklist of the free-living marine nematodes of the Iberian Peninsula (North East Atlantic). Zootaxa, 4347 (2), 228–254.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4347.2.2
Bezerra, T.N., Decraemer, W., Eisendle-Flöckner, U., Hodda, M., Holovachov, O., Leduc, D., Miljutin, D., Mokievsky, V., Peña Santiago, R., Sharma, J., Smol, N., Tchesunov, A., Venekey, V., Zhao, Z. & Vanreusel, A. (2019) Nemys: World Database of Nematodes. Nematoda. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species. Available from: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=799 (accessed 14 December 2019)
Bhadury, P., Mondal, N., Ansari, K.G.M.T., Philip, T., Pitale, R., Prasade, A., Nagale, P. & Apte, D. (2015) Checklist of free-living marine nematodes from intertidal sites along the Central West Coast of India. Check List, 11 (2), 1–7.
https://doi.org/10.15560/11.2.1605
Boufahja, F., Vitiello, P. & Aissa, P. (2014) More than 35 years of studies on marine nematodes from Tunisia: A checklist of species and their distribution. Zootaxa, 3786 (3), 269–300.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3786.3.3
Costello, M.J. (2015) Biodiversity: The known, unknown, and rates of extinction. Current Biology, 25, R362–R383.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.03.051
De Ley, P. & Blaxter, M.L. (2004) A new system for Nematoda: combining morphological characters with molecular trees, and translating clades into ranks and taxa. Nematology Monographs & Perspectives, 2, 633–653.
Giere, O. (2009) Meiobenthology. The microscopic motile fauna of aquatic sediments. 2nd Edition. Springer, Berlin, 527 pp.
Gotelli, N.J. (2004) A taxonomic wish-list for community ecology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 359, 385–397.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2003.1443
Greenslade, P. (1989) Checklist of free-living marine nematodes from Australia, Macquarie Island and Heard Island. Records of the Australian Museum, Sydney, 23, 7–19.
Heip, C., Vincx, M. & Vranken, G. (1985) The ecology of marine nematodes. Oceanography and Marine Biology. An Annual Review, 23, 399–489.
Hope, W.D. (2009) Free-Living Marine Nematoda of the Gulf of Mexico. In: Felder, D.L. & Camp, D.K. (Eds.), Gulf of Mexico-Origins, Waters, and Biota. Biodiversity. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas, pp. 1111–1123.
López-Cánovas, C.I. & Pastor De Ward, C. (2006) Lista de los nemátodos de la clase Adenophorea (Subclase Chromadoria y Enoplia) de los pastos marinos del Archipiélago Sabana-Camagüey, Cuba. Poeyana, 494, 38–42.
Miloslavich, P., Díaz, J.M., Klein, E., Alvarado, J.J., Díaz, C., Gobin, J., Escobar-Briones, E., Cruz-Motta, J.J., Weil, E., Cortés, J., Bastidas, A.C., Robertson, R., Zapata, F., Martín, A., Castillo, J., Kazandjian, A. & Ortiz, M. (2010) Marine biodiversity in the Caribbean: Regional estimates and distribution patterns. Plos One, 5, e11916.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011916
Pérez-García, J.A., Díaz-Delgado, Y., García-Machado, E., Martínez-García, A., Gonzalez, B. C., Worsaae, K. & Armenteros, M. (2018) Nematode diversity of freshwater and anchialine caves of Western Cuba. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 131, 144–155.
https://doi.org/10.2988/17-00024
Pérez-García, J.A., Marzo-Pérez, D. & Armenteros, M. (2019) Spatial scale influences diversity patterns of free-living nematode assemblages in coral degradation zones from the Caribbean Sea. Marine Biodiversity, 49 (4), 1831–1842.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-019-00945-z
Pérez-García, J.A., Ruiz-Abierno, A. & Armenteros, M. (2015) Does morphology of host marine macroalgae drive the ecological structure of epiphytic meiofauna? Journal of Marine Biology and Oceanography, 4, 1–7.
https://doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000139
Platt, H.M. & Warwick, R.M. (1983) Free-living marine nematodes. Part I. British Enoplids. Vol. 28. The Linnean Society of London and The Estuarine and Brackish-Water Sciences Association, Cambridge, 307 pp.
Platt, H.M. & Warwick, R.M. (1988) Free-living marine nematodes. Part II. British Chromadorids. Vol. 38. The Linnean Society of London and The Estuarine and Brackish-water Sciences Association, Leiden, 502 pp.
Ruiz-Abierno, A. & Armenteros, M. (2017) Coral reef habitats strongly influence the diversity of macro and meiobenthos in the Caribbean. Marine Biodiversity, 47, 101–111.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-016-0553-7
Thomson, S.A., Pyle, R.L., Ahyong, S.T., Alonso-Zarazaga, M., Ammirati, J., Araya, J.F., Ascher, J.S., Audisio, T.L., Azevedo-Santos, V.M., Bailly, N., Baker, W.J., Balke, M., Barclay, M.V.L., Barrett, R.L., Benine, R.C., Bickerstaff, J.R.M., Bouchard, P., Bour, R., Bourgoin, T., Boyko, C.B., Breure, A.S.H., Brothers, D.J., Byng, J.W., Campbell, D., Ceríaco, L.M.P., Cernák, I., Cerretti, P., Chang, C.-H., Cho, S., Copus, J.M., Costello, M.J., Cseh, A.,Csuzdi, C., Culham, A., D’Elía, G., d’Udekem d’Acoz, C., Daneliya, M.E., Dekker, R., Dickinson, E.C., Dickinson, T.A., van Dijk, P.P., Dijkstra, K.-D.B., Dima, B., Dmitriev, D.A., Duistermaat, L., Dumbacher, J.P., Eiserhardt, W.L., Ekrem, T., Evenhuis, N.L., Faille, A., Fernández-Triana, J.L., Fiesler, E., Fishbein, M., Fordham, B.G., Freitas, A.V.L., Friol, N.R., Fritz, U., Frøslev, T., Funk, V.A., Gaimari, S.D., Garbino, G.S.T., Garraffoni, A.R.S., Geml, J., Gill, A.C., Gray, A., Grazziotin, F.G., Greenslade, P., Gutiérrez, E.E., Harvey, M.S., Hazevoet, C.J., He, K., He, X., Helfer, S., Helgen, K.M., van Heteren, A.H., Hita Garcia, F., Holstein, N., Horváth, M.K., Hovenkamp, P.H., Hwang, W.S., Hyvönen, J., Islam, M.B., Iverson, J.B., Ivie, Mi.A., Jaafar, Z., Jackson, M.D., Jayat, J.P., Johnson, N.F., Kaiser, H., Klitgård, B.B., Knapp, D.G., Kojima, J.-I., Kõljalg, U., Kontschán, J., Krell, F.-T., Krisai-Greilhuber, I., Kullander, S., Latella, L., Lattke, J.E., Lencioni, V., Lewis, G.P., Lhano, M.G., Lujan, N.K., Luksenburg, J.A., Mariaux, J., Marinho-Filho, J., Marshall, C.J., Mate, J.F., McDonough, M.M., Michel, E., Miranda, V.F.O., Mitroiu, M.-D., Molinari, J., Monks, S., Moore, A.J., Moratelli, R., Murányi, D., Nakano, T., Nikolaeva, S., Noyes, J., Ohl, M., Oleas, N.H., Orrell, T., Páll-Gergely, B., Pape, T., Papp, V., Parenti, L.R., Patterson, D., Pavlinov, I.Y., Pine, R.H., Poczai, P., Prado, J., Prathapan, D., Rabeler, R.K., Randall, J.E., Rheindt, F.E., Rhodin, A.G.J., Rodríguez, S.M., Rogers, D.C., Roque, F.de.O., Rowe, K.C., Ruedas, L.A., Salazar-Bravo, J., Salvador, R.B., Sangster, G., Sarmiento, C.E., Schigel, D.S., Schmidt, S., Schueler, F.W., Segers, H., Snow, N., Souza-Dias, P.G.B., Stals, R., Stenroos, S., Stone, R.D., Sturm, C.F., Štys, P., Teta, P., Thomas, D.C., Timm, R.M., Tindall, B.J., Todd, J.A., Triebel, D., Valdecasas, A.G., Vizzini, A., Vorontsova, M.S., de Vos, J.M., Wagner, P., Watling, L., Weakley, A., Welter-Schultes, F., Whitmore, D., Wilding, N., Will, K., Williams, J., Wilson, K., Winston, J.E., Wüster, W., Yanega, D., Yeates, D.K., Zaher, H., Zhang, G., Zhang, Z.-Q. & Zhou, H.-Z. (2018) Taxonomy based on science is necessary for global conservation. PLoS Biology, 16, e2005075.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005075
Vincx, M. (1996) Meiofauna in marine and freshwater sediments. In: Hall, G.S. (Ed.), Methods for the Examination of Organismal Diversity in Soils and Sediments. CAB International, Wallingfort, pp. 187–195.
Warwick, R.M., Platt, H.M. & Somerfield, P.J. (1998) Free-living marine nematodes. Part III. Monhysterids. Vol. 53. The Linnean Society of London and The Estuarine and Coastal Sciences Association, Shrewsbury, 296 pp.