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Tintinnid ciliates of the marine microzooplankton in Arctic Seas: a compilation and analysis of species records

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Abstract

We set out to examine a postulated latitudinal trend in species richness within the Arctic Ocean. We compiled species records of tintinnid ciliates in the Arctic from the literature and added our own unpublished Chukchi Sea data to produce a database (available as an Online Resource data file) consisting of 1427 records of 89 species from 414 locations above 65°N sampled from 1885 to 2015. While there was no trend of species richness throughout the Arctic, there was a significant positive relationship between species richness and the number of sites sampled in a 2° band, suggesting a sampling effect. Plotting cumulative numbers of species and cumulative number of sites sampled by year, we found a linear relationship in log cumulative numbers of species and log sites sampled, and a lack of a plateau in the species accumulation trend. Species records are highly dominated by four species, accounting for 45% of the records: Acanthostomella norvegica, Parafavella denticulata, Ptychocylis obtusa and Sal**ella acuminata, all of which, except S. acuminata, have long been suspected to be morphologically variable, with different morphotypes given undue species status. Pooling all reported species of Acanthostomella, Parafavella and Ptychocylis yielded little qualitative differences but considerable quantitative differences. We found large discrepancies in geographic coverage. We conclude that many zones projected to experience large changes in sea ice coverage are under-sampled. Based on the historical trend, the list of Arctic tintinnid ciliate species will likely continue to grow with new sampling, regardless of changes in the Arctic Seas.

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Acknowledgements

Marina Monti, Kohel Mastsuno, and Neil Swanberg supplied a substantial quantity of data. They kindly retrieved data from their own archives and sent us spreadsheets of species records from their oceanographic campaigns. We also appreciate the efforts of Kristian Seteras of the Institute of Marine Research Library in Bergen who sent us images of the many tables in Gran (1900), missing from copies available online, which provided the earliest Arctic records. We thank Sabine Agatha for providing copies of early Russian reports and Yana Eglit for hel** us decipher them. Comments on earlier drafts by Mark Costello, Dave Montagnes, three reviewers and the Editor led to significant improvements. Partial financial support was provided by grants from the ‘(K-AOOS KOPRI, PM16040)’, funded by the MOF, Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS UMR 7093, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche-sur-Mer, Station Zoologique, 06230, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

    John R. Dolan

  2. P.O. Box 132, North Attleboro, MA, 022761-0132, USA

    Richard W. Pierce

  3. Department of Polar Ocean Environment, Korea Polar Research Institute, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, South Korea

    Eun ** Yang

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Correspondence to John R. Dolan.

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Dolan, J.R., Pierce, R.W. & Yang, E.J. Tintinnid ciliates of the marine microzooplankton in Arctic Seas: a compilation and analysis of species records. Polar Biol 40, 1247–1260 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-016-2049-0

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