MALDI-TOF MS data: Species delimitation of Hexacorallia and Octocorallia around Iceland using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA and proteome fingerprinting ...

• Main Authors: Korfhage, Severin A., Rossel, Sven, Brix, Saskia, McFadden, Catherine, Ólafsdóttir, Steinunn Hilma, Martínez Abizu, Pedro
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Marine biodiversity; Norwegian Sea; Reykjanes; Iceland; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvk0; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvk0

Cold-water corals build up reef structures or coral gardens and play an important role for many organisms in the deep sea. Climate change, deep-sea mining, and bottom trawling are severely compromising these ecosystems, making it all the more important to document the diversity, distribution, and impacts on corals. This goes hand in hand with species identification, which is morphologically and genetically challenging for Hexa- and Octocorallia. Morphological variation and slowly evolving molecular markers both contribute to the difficulty of species identification. In this study, a fast and cheap species delimitation tool for Octocorallia and Scleractinia of the Northeast Atlantic was tested based on 49 specimens. Two nuclear markers (ITS2 and 28S rDNA) and two mitochondrial markers (COI and mtMutS) were sequenced. The sequences formed the basis of a reference library for comparison to the results of species delimitation based on proteomic analysis using the MALDI-TOF MS method. The genetic methods were ... : Sampling The specimens were collected by the ROV Kiel 6000 between 19th June and 27th July 2020 in Icelandic waters during the IceAGE 3 cruise SO276/MerMet17-6 (with RV SONNE) and by the ROV PHOCA during the IceAGE RR cruise MSM75 between 29th June and 8th August 2018 (RV MS MERIAN). Stations were located around Iceland, in the Norwegian Basin, the Norwegian Sea, and the Reykjanes Ridge in 207.1 m to 2,040.8 m depth. The collected corals were photographed with an HD camera system of the ROV Kiel 6000 in the habitat and with a DLSR camera system (Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo lens and Canon Compact-Macro Lens EF 50mm 1:25) on board. Samples were preserved in 96% undenatured ethanol which was changed after 24h on board. Larger samples were preserved in 3% formol solution where subsamples were taken and preserved in 96% undenatured ethanol. Samples were stored at -20 °C at the German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research (DZMB) in Hamburg, Germany. MALDI-TOF MS analysis In ...