Quinquelaophonte enormis sp. nov., a new interstitial copepod (Harpacticoida: Laophontidae) from Korea

Jaehyun Kim; Eunjung Nam; Wonchoel Lee

doi:10.7717/peerj.10007

Quinquelaophonte enormis sp. nov., a new interstitial copepod (Harpacticoida: Laophontidae) from Korea

PeerJ. 2020 Sep 22:8:e10007. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10007. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jaehyun Kim¹, Eunjung Nam², Wonchoel Lee¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Life Science, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea.
² Animal Resources Division, National Institute of Biological Resources, Incheon, South Korea.

Abstract

We collected an undescribed laophontid copepod from a coarse sand habitat on the east coast of Korea and named it Quinquelaophonte enormis sp. nov. We compared the detailed morphological characteristics of the new species with those of congeneric species. Among them, the new species shows a superficial resemblance to the Californian species Quinquelaophonte longifurcata Lang, 1965. However, the two species are easily distinguishable by the setation of the syncoxa on the maxilliped and the fourth swimming leg. The new species has the variable setation on the second to fourth swimming legs. The variations appear among individuals or between the left and right rami of a pair of legs in a single specimen. Although complex chaetotaxical polymorphism occur in this new species, we used myCOI and Cytb to confirm that the new species is not a species complex. Also, partial sequences of 18S and 28S ribosomal RNA genes were used to analyze the position of the new species within the family Laophontidae. The new speciesis the fourteenth Quinquelaophonte species in the world and the second species in Korea.

Keywords: DNA barcoding; East sea; Meiofauna; Sandy habitat.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR) funded by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea (MOE, NIBR202002114), the National Institute of Fisheries Science (NIFS) of the Republic of Korea (R2020035), and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, 2018R1D1A1B07050117). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.