Nematodes community composition and environmental parameters, Eastern Antarctic Peninsula ...

• Main Authors: Panto, Gabriella, Pasotti, Francesca, Macheriotou, Lara, Vanreusel, Ann
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2021
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Duse; Duse Bay; Prince Gustav Channel; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n8pk0p2tr; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.n8pk0p2tr

This study provides a snapshot of the largely understudied meiobenthic and nematode communities in the Prince Gustav Channel and Duse Bay. We compared five stations sampled at different water depths along the shelf and investigated their meiobenthic community structure. We approached nematode biodiversity comparing traditional taxonomic identification and high throughput sequencing (HTS), with the use of Amplicon Sequence Variants (ASVs). Additionally, we characterized the environment by primary production proxies, grain size and seasonal ice conditions. Our results suggest that the availability of organic matter and its freshness are responsible for the high densities found at all depths. However, potential factors influencing the high local and regional variability of meiofauna density and biodiversity are less clear. A bathymetric transect consisting of three stations in Duse Bay (200 m, 500 m and 1000 m depth) showed increasing pigment concentrations in the first centimeters of the sediment vertical ...