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Issue: Vol. 5419 No. 2: 6 Mar. 2024
Type: Article
Published: 2024-03-06
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5419.2.1
Page range: 151-188
Abstract views: 18
PDF downloaded: 6

New xenophyophores (Foraminifera, Monothalamea) from the eastern Clarion-Clipperton Zone (equatorial Pacific)

National Oceanography Centre; European Way; Southampton SO14 3ZH; UK; Life Sciences Department; Natural History Museum; Cromwell Road; London SW7 5BD; UK
Department of Genetics and Evolution; University of Geneva; Quai Ernest Ansermet 30; 1211 Geneva 4; Geneva; Switzerland
Department of Genetics and Evolution; University of Geneva; Quai Ernest Ansermet 30; 1211 Geneva 4; Geneva; Switzerland; Department of Geosciences; The Arctic University of Norway; Dramsvegen 201; 9037 Tromsø; Norway
Tropical Marine Science Institute; National University of Singapore; 18 Kent Ridge Road; Singapore 119227; Singapore; Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum; National University of Singapore; 2 Conservatory Drive; Singapore 117377
Institute of Oceanology; Polish Academy of Sciences; 81-712 Sopot; Poland; ID-Gene Ecodiagnostics; Chemin du Pont-du-Centenaire 109; 1228 Plan-les-Ouates; Switzerland
Protista Monothalamids Protists DNA barcoding molecular phylogeny biodiversity seabed mining polymetallic nodules

Abstract

Xenophyophores are large, agglutinated foraminifera that dominate the benthic megafauna in some parts of the deep sea. Here, we describe an assemblage of largely fragmentary specimens from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an area of the eastern abyssal Pacific hosting large, commercially significant deposits of polymetallic nodules. We recognised 18 morphospecies of which eight yielded DNA sequences. These include two new genera and three new species, Claraclippia seminuda gen. & sp. nov., Stereodiktyoma mollis gen. & sp. nov., and Aschemonella tani sp. nov., three that are assigned to known species, Abyssalia foliformis, Aschemonella monilis and Shinkaiya contorta, and two assigned to open nomenclature forms Abyssalia aff. foliformis and Stannophyllum aff. granularium. An additional ten forms are represented only by morphology. The following seven are placed in known genera, species and open-nomenclature forms: Aschemonella? sp., Homogammina sp., Psammina multiloculata, P. aff. multiloculata, P. aff. limbata form 1 sensu Gooday et al., 2018, P. aff. limbata form 2 sensu Gooday et al., 2018, and Stannophyllum spp. The other three could not be identified to genus level. This new collection brings the total of described and undescribed species and morphotypes from the CCZ to 27 and 70, respectively, reinforcing the already high diversity of xenophyophores known from this part of the Pacific.

 

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