TY - JOUR

T1 - Anchialine biodiversity in the Turks and Caicos islands

T2 - new discoveries and current faunal composition

AU - Gonzalez, Brett C.

AU - Martínez, Alejandro

AU - Olesen, Jørgen

AU - Truskey, Sarit B.

AU - Ballou, Lauren

AU - Allentoft-Larsen, Marc

AU - Daniels, Joost

AU - Heinerth, Paul

AU - Parrish, Mark

AU - Manco, Naqqi

AU - Ward, Jon

AU - Iliffe, Thomas M.

AU - Osborn, Karen J.

AU - Worsaae, Katrine

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Lying at the southernmost point ofthe 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.

AB - Lying at the southernmost point ofthe 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.

KW - Anchialine

KW - Nerillidae

KW - Polynoidae

KW - Remipedia

KW - Subterranean fauna

U2 - 10.5038/1827-806X.49.2.2316

DO - 10.5038/1827-806X.49.2.2316

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85085879699

VL - 49

SP - 71

EP - 86

JO - International Journal of Speleology

JF - International Journal of Speleology

SN - 0392-6672

IS - 2

ER -