Published November 25, 2019 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Patterns of diversity and endemism of soft-bodied meiofauna in an oceanic island, Lanzarote, Canary Islands

  • 1. Water Research Institute, National Research Council of Italy, CNR-IRSA, Largo Tonolli 50, 28922 Verbania, Italy
  • 2. Center for Marine Research, Federal University of Parana, Pontal do Paraná, Paraná, Brasil
  • 3. Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 615 McCallie Avenue, Chattanooga, TN, 37403, USA
  • 4. Department of Veterinary Science, University of Sassari, via Vienna 2, 07100 Sassari, Italy
  • 5. Department of Life Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, via G. Campi, 213/D, 41125 Modena, Italy
  • 6. Center for Environmental Sciences - Campus Diepenbeek Agoralaan Gebouw D - B-3590 Diepenbeek Kantoor D159, University of Hasselt. Hasselt, Belgium
  • 7. Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
  • 8. SNSB-Bavarian State Collection for Zoology, Münchhausenstr. 21, 81247 München, Germany
  • 9. Benthos Laboratory, Department of Animal Biology, Edaphology and Geology, University of La Laguna. Avenida Astrofisico Francisco Sánchez s/n. 38206 La Laguna, Spain
  • 10. Marine Biological Section, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 5, 2800 Copenhagen Ø

Description

Oceanic islands, characterized by high levels of endemism and distinct faunas when compared to neighbouring continents, represent natural evolutionary laboratories for biologists to understand ecological and evolutionary processes. However, most studies on oceanic islands have focused on terrestrial and marine macrofaunal organisms, and ignored microscopic animals. We present here an inventory of all soft-bodied meiofaunal organisms collected during a two-weeks workshop on the oceanic island of Lanzarote, Canary Islands. Our checklist included 239 species, with 88 of them endemic to the archipelago. The number of endemic species was lower in groups with a higher proportion of parthenogenetic species, while it was not significantly affected by body size and percentage of species with dispersal stages. A higher percentage of endemic species was found in isolated habitats and environments, with only annelids showing significantly higher number of endemic species in anchialine caves. Our results might be biased by the high number of indeterminate species found in our samples and the lack of knowledge of the meiofaunal of the African coast. Our findings, however, provide the first insight of patterns of diversity in oceanic islands, suggesting that island endemic species might also exist amongst microscopic animals

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Funding

ANCAVE – Anchialine caves to understand evolutionary processes 745530
European Commission