Morphological and genetic species diversity in ostracods (Crustacea: Oligostraca) from Caribbean reefs

Abstract

The taxonomy and ecology of ostracods in the Caribbean remain incomplete, even though they are among the most successful and ubiquitous microcrustaceans of marine ecosystems. In an effort to enhance our knowledge of the biodiversity, abundance, and distribution of benthic ostracods, several sediment samples were collected from mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) of Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands at different depths (30-102 m) using technical diving. The highest densities of ostracods were found in the deepest samples (≥61 m), and these were the most abundant and diverse assemblages. All ostracods collected belong to the subclasses Myodocopa Sars and Podocopa Sars. Myodocopa was represented by the families Cypridinidae Baird, Polycopidae Sars, Sarsiellidae Brady & N o r m a n , R u t i d e r m a t i d a e B r a d y & N o r m a n , Cylindroleberididae Müller, and Philomedidae Müller. On the other hand, Podocopa was represented by the following families: Bairdiidae Sars, Pontocyprididae Müller, Candonidae Kaufmann (subfamily Paracypridinae Sars), Macrocyprididae Müller, Loxoconchidae Sars, Xestoleberididae Sars, Cytherellidae Sars and Cytheromatidae Elofson. The subclass Podocopa showed the highest number of individuals and species. There was a~100 % correspondence between morphologically identified species and genetically defined species through a short region of the nuclear large subunit ribosomal DNA, which was shown to be appropriate for species recognition and discrimination in ostracods. Using a morphological (shell shape and ornamentation) and molecular barcoding approach (28S rDNA), we provide the first report of the biodiversity of ostracods in the mesophotic coral ecosystems of northeastern Caribbean.

Fish, Coral, and Sponge Assemblages Associated With Altiphotic and Mesophotic Reefs Along the Guánica Biosphere Reserve Continental Shelf Edge, Southwest Puerto Rico

“…Recently, more attention has been given to MCEs in the Atlantic and Caribbean region, including research off Puerto Rico (Galindo-Estronza et al, 2016;Veglia et al, 2018), the US Virgin Islands (Holstein et al, 2016;Weinstein et al, 2016), Curaçao (Hoeksema et al, 2016;Glasl et al, 2017), Bermuda (Goodbody-Gringley et al, 2015), Honduras (Laverick et al, 2017), Belize (Lesser and Slattery, 2013), the Bahamas (Slattery and Lesser, 2012;Slattery et al, 2016), Little Cayman (Brazeau et al, 2013), Colombia (Gonzalez-Zapata et al, 2018), and Mexico (Gress et al, 2017). In Puerto Rico, the primary focus of past (e.g., Starck and Colin, 1978;Nelson and Appeldoorn, 1985;Dennis et al, 2004) and more recent work (Sherman et al, 2010(Sherman et al, , 2013a has been on MCEs located off the south coast of the island (see review by Appeldoorn et al, 2018).…”

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“…Thus, there exist a need for rigorous molecular phylogenetic studies, which is specifically required for extracted total DNA. So far DNA extractions from freshwater ostracods have been conducted mainly based on two approaches Chelex-100 (Schön et al 1998;Schön et al 2000;Schön et al 2003) and commercial kits (Estronza et al 2016;Nigro et al 2016).…”