A new predator connecting the abyssal with the hadal in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, NW Pacific

Anne-Nina Lörz; Anna Maria Jażdżewska; Angelika Brandt

doi:10.7717/peerj.4887

A new predator connecting the abyssal with the hadal in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, NW Pacific

PeerJ. 2018 Jun 7:6:e4887. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4887. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Anne-Nina Lörz¹, Anna Maria Jażdżewska², Angelika Brandt^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Centre of Natural History, Zoological Museum, University of Hamburg CeNak, Hamburg, Germany.
² Laboratory of Polar Biology and Oceanobiology, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland.
³ Department of Marine Zoology, Section Crustacea, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
⁴ Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Abstract

The bathyal to hadal deep sea of north-west Pacific Ocean was recently intensively sampled during four international expeditions (KuramBio I and II, SoJaBio and SokhoBio). A large amphipod, Rhachotropis saskia n. sp., was sampled in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench and increases the number of described hadal species of that area to eight. A detailed description of the new species is provided, including illustrations, scanning-microscope images and molecular analysis. This predatory species was sampled at both continental and ocean abyssal margins of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench as well as at hadal depths of the trench. The wide bathymetric distribution of the new species over more than 3,000 m is confirmed by molecular analysis, indicating that the Kuril Kamchatka Trench is not a distribution barrier for this species. However, the molecular analysis indicated the presence of isolation by distance of the populations of the studied taxon.

Keywords: Abyssal; Amphipoda; Hadal; Integrative taxonomy; Kuril-Kamchatka trench; Rhachotropis.

Grants and funding

The material was collected and sorted in the frame of the project KuramBio with the financial support of the PTJ (German Ministry for Science and Education), grant 03G0223A and BMBF grant 03G0250A to Prof. Dr. Angelika Brandt, University of Hamburg, now Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt, Germany. The analysis of the material was supported by the Polish National Science Centre grant to Anna Jażdżewska, University of Lodz (project No. 2014/15/D/NZ8/00289). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.