New deep-sea large free-living nematodes from macrobenthos in the 0 Kuril-Kamchatka Trench (the North-Western Pacific)

The composition of deep-sea nematode assemblages of the North-Western (NW) Pacific is poorly-studied. According to the available literature data more than 700 valid species of nematodes were reported from the depth of 400 m and deeper, out of that only 6 species were registered in the NW Pacific: 2 species from the coast of the Japanese Islands and 4 from the Sea of Japan. Ecological studies of the deep-sea nematode communities of this region are scanty and represent very scarce and fragmentary information. The first recent study of free-living nematodes collected from the abyssal plain adjacent to the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench has revealed more than 50 species of nematodes in macrobenthic samples. Families Anticomidae, Comesomatidae, Desmodoridae, Leptosomatidae, Oncholaimidae, Oxystominidae, Phanodermatidae, Siphonolaimidae and Thoracostomopsidae were the most abundant and diverse. Such taxonomic composition differs greatly from previously described meiobenthical nematode communities of NW Pacific and even World Ocean and similar to macrofaunal nematode assemblages of the Atlantic and Arctic regions. Several genera of nematodes can be considered as new records for the NW Pacific region. Micoletzkyia kamchatika sp. nov., Metaphanoderma improvise sp. nov., and Phylloncholaimus palmaris sp. nov. are described from the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. Micoletzkyia kamchatika sp. nov. is particularly characterized by a developed cuticular cephalic capsule underlying amphids, relatively small amphids, and the shape of the gubernaculum. Metaphanoderma improvisa sp. nov. is particularly characterized by a developed cuticular cephalic capsule, relatively large amphids, and the absence of pigmented eye spots. Phylloncholaimus palmaris sp. nov. is similar to the type species in many measurements but may be differentiated from that by the smaller amphid, shape of spicules and gubernaculums and by large precloacal papillae with four setae. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.