Do Meio- and Macrobenthic Nematodes Differ in Community Composition and Body Weight Trends with Depth?

PLoS One

Jeffrey Baguley¹  Jyotsna Sharma²  Gilbert Rowe³  Bodil A. Bluhm⁴ 

[1] Department of Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, United States of America;Department of Biology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States of America;Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Galveston, Texas, United States of America;Institute of Marine Science, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States of America

关键词: Sediment;    Gulf of Mexico;    Sea water;    Deep sea;    Nematoda;    Clustering algorithms;    Body weight;    Taxonomy;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.pone.0014491

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Nematodes occur regularly in macrobenthic samples but are rarely identified from them and are thus considered exclusively a part of the meiobenthos. Our study compares the generic composition of nematode communities and their individual body weight trends with water depth in macrobenthic (>250/300 µm) samples from the deep Arctic (Canada Basin), Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and the Bermuda slope with meiobenthic samples (<45 µm) from GOM. The dry weight per individual (µg) of all macrobenthic nematodes combined showed an increasing trend with increasing water depth, while the dry weight per individual of the meiobenthic GOM nematodes showed a trend to decrease with increasing depth. Multivariate analyses showed that the macrobenthic nematode community in the GOM was more similar to the macrobenthic nematodes of the Canada Basin than to the GOM meiobenthic nematodes. In particular, the genera Enoploides, Crenopharynx, Micoletzkyia, Phanodermella were dominant in the macrobenthos and accounted for most of the difference. Relative abundance of non-selective deposit feeders (1B) significantly decreased with depth in macrobenthos but remained dominant in the meiobenthic community. The occurrence of a distinct assemblage of bigger nematodes of high dry weight per individual in the macrobenthos suggests the need to include nematodes in macrobenthic studies.

【 授权许可】

CC BY