Sybille Seifried

Phylogenetic relationships at the base of Oligoarthra (Copepoda, Harpacticoida) with a new species as the cornerstone**

Romete bulbiseta gen. et sp. nov. (Aegisthoidea Giesbrecht, 1892: Rometidae fam. nov.) is described from the Great Meteor Seamount, northeast Atlantic. An analysis of the phylogeny and evolution of the basal Harpacticoida Sars, 1903 is presented. Cerviniidae Sars, 1903 and Cervinioidea Sars, 1903 are respective junior synonyms of Aegisthidae Giesbrecht, 1892 and Aegisthoidea Giesbrecht, 1892. Rometidae fam. nov. is identified as sistertaxon of Aegisthidae. Rotundiclipeidae Huys, 1988 and Styracothoracidae Huys, 1993 are removed from Aegisthoidea and placed in Syngnatharthra tax. nov., sistergroup of Aegisthoidea. “Maxillipedasphalea” Lang, 1944 is polyphyletic and therefore not maintained here. A morphological analysis of taxa of Harpacticoida reveals the autapomorphies of Rometidae, Aegisthidae, Aegisthoidea, Syngnatharthra, and Oligoarthra Lang, 1944. Diagnoses for these taxa are given.

Small-scale diversity of Harpacticoida (Crustacea, Copepoda) from an intertidal sandflat in the Jade Bay (German Bight, North Sea)

Harpacticoid copepod assemblages from an intertidal sandflat in the Jade Bay (German Bight, North Sea) were investigated during a snapshot study, uncovering a relatively high small-scale organismic diversity: 1952 adult Harpacticoida of 32 species were recorded, belonging to 19 genera and 13 families. With 1232 adult specimens (63.1 %), Ectinosomatidae were the most abundant family, containingPseudobradya minor (T. & A.Scott) as the dominating species (57.4 %). For five species,Dactylopusia vulgaris (Sars),Remanea arenicolaKlie,Mesochra pygmaea (Claus),Arenopontia subterraneaKunz, andEnhydrosoma garieneGurney, the distributional range along the German coast line was extended to the area west of the river Elbe. Two species,Arenosetella tenuissima (Klie) andPseudobradya beduinaMonard, were recorded for the first time in the Jade region. Most species recorded in our study are typical inhabitants of interridal sandy and/or muddy environments.Taking into account different aspects of diversity (species richness: species numbers, estimated species numbers by Jack-knife 1 and 2, species richness plots; heterogeneity: Shannon index, rarefaction curves; phylogenetic/taxonomic relationship: taxonomic distinctness) we found only minor diversity differences between four investigated small spatial scales (circles from 18 cm to 20 m diameter). Hypothesis [a] stating increasing diversity with increasing scale had to be rejected. This unexpected result could be caused by the presence of a mosaic of more or less randomly arranged micropatches of species over the sampling domain. Obviously, all citcles were more or less within the range of a single ecological scale. A slight diversity change at the 20 m scale, mainly based on lower species density, may be due to changing tide, or to a beginning overlap of small-scale random micropatches by a larger-scale environmental pattern. Since we found only minor diversity changes from the smallest (centimetres) to the largest investigated scale (tens of metres), biotic and/or abiotic factors and processes acting at spatial scales of centimetres are assumed to be of special relevance for intertidal harpacricoid diversity.Hypothesis [b] of no significant harpacticoid assemblage differences between the investigated scales was tested by ANOSIM for two similarity measures, leading to different results. Cosine similarity revealed no significant difference in assemblage composition between all possible pairwise combinations of circles, whereas [b] had to rejected for Bray-Curtis dissimilarity which produced significant results for two pairs (A/D, C/D). The difference between the test results is suggested to be caused by a lower species density in circle D, since Bray-Curtis dissimilarity is separating similar monitoring units if the difference is only due to multiples in abundance (Pfeifer et al. 1998).

The phylogenetic position of arcticomisop hria bathylaptevensis gen. et sp. n. (Crustacea: copepoda) a new misophrioid from hyperbenthic deep-sea waters in the laptev sea (arctic ocean)

Abstract Arcticomisophria bathylaptevensis gen. et sp. n., the first record of Misophrioida from the high Arctic Ocean is described. The new genus belongs to the Misophria-group. It has retained a number of plesiomorphic characters, especially in the antennule, maxillule, and the fifth swimming leg. These affect the reconstruction ofthe groundpattem of the Misophrioida and Podoplea. A key to the genera of the Misophria-group is provided.

Redescription of Bradya typica Boeck, 1873 (Copepoda: Harpacticoida: Ectinosomatidae) with the first description of the male

Bradyatypica Boeck, 1873 is described from samples collected in the course of a colonisation experiment in Kongsfjorden, Spitsbergen (2003–2005). The male of B. typica, the type-species of the genus is described for the first time. B. typica can be distinguished from its congeners by its caudal rami (1.4 times longer than wide) and by its P5 (exopod longer than wide, inner terminal seta of exopod longest, inner seta of baseoendopod longer than outer one and surface seta rigid and curved). Variability within the species is rather small as only the length of some setae is slightly different. B. cladiofera Lang, 1965, B. congenera Sars, 1920, B. minutiseta Soyer, 1973 and B.pugiochaeta Arlt, 1983 are closely related to B. typica. Some details of the morphology, such as the body ornamentation and the longer hair-like pinnules on the spines of the swimming legs, are very difficult to observe even with maximum magnification. With certainty, B. typica is distributed near the Norwegian coast (Oslo Fjord to Trondheim Fjord), the Swedish coast (Skagerak to Öresund), around Spitsbergen and around the polar islands north of Grinnelland (Canadian Arctic Archipelago near Baffin Bay). Records of B. typica from the Kara Sea (near Novaya Zemlya), near Franz Joseph Land, Iceland, Greenland, the British Isles and from deep waters of the North Sea have to be confirmed.