In Australia, the Ameiridae is the most diverse harpacticoid family in groundwater, with 35 species hitherto reported. In this study, we describe two new species belonging to the "vasconica"-group of the ameirid genus Nitocrella based on specimens collected from groundwaters near mine sites in the Pilbara and Great Sandy Desert regions of northwestern Australia. Nitocrella knotti sp. n. can be distinguished from related taxa by having two setae on the antennal exopod, four armature elements on the distal endopodal segment of leg 2, four armature elements on the distal endopodal segment of leg 3, three armature elements on the distal endopodal segment of leg 4, and three setae on the basoendopodal lobe of leg 5. Nitocrella karanovici sp. n. differs from its congeners by having a short outer spine and long inner seta on the distal endopodal segment of leg 2, three armature elements on the distal endopodal segment of leg 3, and four setae on the basoendopodal lobe of leg 5 in the female. This study is of biogeographic interest in providing the first documentation of the genus Nitocrella from the Pilbara and Great Sandy Desert regions. Both new species of Nitocrella are recorded from restricted localities and appear to be short-range endemics, thus making them potentially vulnerable to environmental changes and threatening processes such as mining. The distribution range of N. karanovici sp. n. coincides with the centre of diversity of the Ethel Gorge aquifer stygobiont community, a globally significant hotspot which is listed as endangered.
The Gnangara Mound is a 2,200 km 2 unconfined aquifer located in the Swan Coastal Plain of Western Australia. This aquifer is one of the most important ground water resources for the Perth Region and supports a number of groundwaterdependent ecosystems, such as the springs of Ellen Brook and root mat communities of the Yanchep Caves. Although freshwater copepods have been documented previously from those caves and springs, their specific identity were hitherto unknown. The current work formally identifies copepod samples collected from 23 sites (12 cave, three bore, five spring and three surface water localities) within the Gnangara Mound region. Fifteen species were documented in this study: the cyclopoids Australoeucyclops sp., Eucyclops edytae sp. nov., Macrocyclops albidus (Jurine, 1820), Mesocyclops brooksi Pesce, De Laurentiis & Humphreys, 1996, Metacyclops arnaudi (G. O. Sars, 1908), Mixocyclops mortoni sp. nov., Paracyclops chiltoni (Thomson, 1882), Paracyclops intermedius sp. nov. and Tropocyclops confinis (Kiefer, 1930), and the harpacticoids Attheyella (Chappuisiella) hirsuta Chappuis, 1951, Australocamptus hamondi Karanovic, 2004, Elaphoidella bidens (Schmeil, 1894), Kinnecaris eberhardi (Karanovic, 2005), Nitocra lacustris pacifica Yeatman, 1983 and Paranitocrella bastiani gen. et sp. nov. Tropocyclops confinis is recorded from Australia for the first time and A. (Ch.) hirsuta and E. bidens are newly recorded for Western Australia. The only copepod taxa endemic to the Gnangara Mound region are E. edytae sp. nov. (occurs primarily in springs and rarely in the Yanchep National Park Caves) and P. bastiani gen. et sp. nov. (confined to the Yanchep National Park Caves containing tuart root mats). Paracyclops chiltoni was the most common species, whilst T. confinis and N. l. pacifica were rarely encountered. Metacyclops arnaudi was the only taxon absent from ground waters. The copepod fauna recorded in the caves and springs of the Gnangara Mound region are comparable, with respect to species richness, endemicity and the varying degrees of dependency on ground water, to those reported from similar habitats in South Australia and Western Australia. Restoring the root mats and maintaining permanent water flow within the Yanchep Caves, as well as minimising urban development near the Ellen Brook Springs, are essential to protect the copepod species, particularly the endemic P. bastiani gen. et sp. nov. and E. edytae sp. nov., inhabiting these unique ground water environments.
A new ridgewayiid copepod, Stygoridgewayia trispinosa n. g. and n. sp., is described from continental ground waters of the Cape Range Peninsula and Pilbara regions of Western Australia, as the first occurrence of this family in fresh waters. The new genus can be distinguished from other ridgewayiid genera by a combination of characters that include three digitiform processes and striated membrane on each caudal ramus, fused ancestral segments II-IV and V-VI on the antennary exopod, leg 1 with a subterminal flagellum on the outer spiniform setae of the terminal exopodal segment, legs 3 and 4 with two outer spiniform setae on the terminal exopodal segment, and female leg 5 with reduced armature on the exopod, terminal exopodal segment inserted along the distal margin of the middle exopodal segment, and endopod absent. We postulate that this new ridgewayiid is a particle feeder living in close contact with the sediment surface, and originated in shallow coastal waters and secondarily colonized the freshwater hypogean environment.
Research Infrastructures (RIs) are facilities, resources and services used by the scientific community to conduct research and foster innovation. LifeWatch ERIC has developed various virtual research environments, which include many virtual laboratories (vLabs) offering high computational capacity and comprehensive collaborative platforms that supporting the needs of digital biodiversity science. Over its 250 years of history, the taxonomic research community has developed a system for describing, classifying and naming taxa across multiple levels. For the marine biota, taxonomic information is organized and made publicly available through the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) that records more than 250,000 described valid species. Although scientists tend to assign an equal status (in terms of contribution to overall diversity) to each taxon used in taxonomy, biogeography, ecology and biodiversity, the question “ are all taxa equal? ” has never been tested at a global scale. We present evidence that this question can be addressed by applying relatedness indices (Taxonomic Distinctness) over the entire WoRMS metazoan tree. The RvLab, developed by the LifeWatchGreece RI, operating on a high-performance computer cluster, has been used to meet the high computational demands required for such an analysis at a global scale.
The 1st International Workshop on Symbiotic Copepoda (IWOSC) was held from 4–8 December, 2010, at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (CMA) in San Pedro, California, U.S.A. We, along with Kazuya Nagasawa of Hiroshima University, Japan, organized the workshop. Ju-Shey Ho of California State University Long Beach, U.S.A., Geoff Boxshall of The Natural History Museum, U.K., and Rodrigo Johnsson of Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil, served as tutors.
This dataset contains the digitized treatments in Plazi based on the original journal article Tang, Danny, Eberhard, Stefan M. (2016): Two new species of Nitocrella (Crustacea, Copepoda, Harpacticoida) from groundwaters of northwestern Australia expand the geographic range of the genus in a global hotspot of subterranean biodiversity. Subterranean Biology 20: 51-76, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.20.10389, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.20.10389
Research Infrastructures (RIs) are facilities, resources and services used by the scientific community to conduct research and foster innovation. LifeWatch ERIC has developed various virtual research environments, which include many virtual laboratories (vLabs) offering high computational capacity and comprehensive collaborative platforms that supporting the needs of digital biodiversity science. Over its 250 years of history, the taxonomic research community has developed a system for describing, classifying and naming taxa across multiple levels. For the marine biota, taxonomic information is organized and made publicly available through the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) that records more than 250,000 described valid species. Although scientists tend to assign an equal status (in terms of contribution to overall diversity) to each taxon used in taxonomy, biogeography, ecology and biodiversity, the question “ are all taxa equal? ” has never been tested at a global scale. We present evidence that this question can be addressed by applying relatedness indices (Taxonomic Distinctness) over the entire WoRMS metazoan tree. The RvLab, developed by the LifeWatchGreece RI, operating on a high-performance computer cluster, has been used to meet the high computational demands required for such an analysis at a global scale.
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