Anchialine biodiversity in the Turks and Caicos Islands: New discoveries and current faunal composition

Autor: Brett C. Gonzalez, Alejandro Martínez, Jørgen Olesen, Sarit B. Truskey, Lauren Ballou, Marc Allentoft-Larsen, Joost Daniels, Paul Heinerth, Mark Parrish, Naqqi Manco, Jon Ward, Thomas M. Iliffe, Karen J. Osborn, Katrine Worsaae
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Speleology, Vol 49, Iss 2, Pp 71-86 (2020)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1827-806X
0392-6672
DOI: 10.5038/1827-806X.49.2.2316
Popis: Lying at the southernmost point of the Lucayan Archipelago, the Turks and Caicos Islands are amongst the better studied localities for anchialine cave biodiversity. For nearly five decades, novel invertebrate fauna, comprised primarily of crustaceans, have been collected from these tidally influenced pools – but new findings are always on the horizon. Herein we present new records of crustaceans and annelids from anchialine blue holes and horizontal caves of the Turks and Caicos. These findings include two potentially new species of meiofaunal annelids and a new species of remipede collected from a shallow water cave pool. Our 2019 expedition additionally expands known faunal distributions for several taxa across the Caicos islands, and raises the biodiversity of the region to 35 species, 13 of them considered endemic. This is the first comprehensive faunal list for the anchialine systems in the Caicos Bank.
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