PREDATORY NEMATODES FROM THE DEEP-SEA - DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES FROM THE NORWEGIAN SEA, DIVERSITY OF FEEDING TYPES AND GEOGRAPHICAL-DISTRIBUTION
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- Abstract:
- Among one hundred and fourteen nematode species found from sediments of Voring plateau and adjacent deep sea plains in the Norwegian Sea, twelve are regarded as predatory as deduced from the structure of their buccal cavities and gut contents. Five new species are described, i.e. Subsphaerolaimus brevicauda sp. n., Sphaerolaimus kleini sp.n., Parasphaerolaimus antiae sp.n., Metasphaerolaimus gerlachi sp. n. and Pomponema koesterae sp. n. The male of M. crassicauda (Freudenhammer, 1975) and M. hamatus Gourbault and Boucher, 1981 is for the first described. Ceratosphaerolaimus Fadeeva, 1983 is synonymized with Metasphaerolaimus Gourbault and Boucher, 1981. The twelve species represent four feeding-types, and size differences of buccal cavities indicate a prey-size selection between species of the feeding types. Most studies reporting predatory nematodes from the deep-sea benthos are from the Atlantic Ocean : twenty-seven species have been identified of which seventeen belong to the Sphaerolaimidae, mainly from the East Atlantic. Dispersal mediated by near bottom currents in the nepheloid bottom layer may explain the wide occurrence of four Norwegian Sea species in the East Atlantic deep-sea; i.e. M. crassicauda in the Iberian Deep Sea, and M. hamatus, Halichoanolaimus minor Ssaweljev, 1912 and Syringolaimus renaudae Gourbault and Vincx, 1985 off South Africa.
