Researchers find new unknown Bryozoa genera and species in the Southwestern Atlantic
A scientific team has discovered twenty new species and two genera for unknown Bryozoa –most of them were found below 1000 meters deep- in the Southwestern Atlantic, according to an article published in the journal Zootaxa with its first author being the researcher Blanca Figuerola, from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the UB (IRBio). Other co-authors of the study are Javier Cristobo (Spanish Institute of Oceanography, IEO) and Dennis P. Gordon (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research-NIWA, New Zealand).
Bryozoa are aquatic and colonial invertebrates that can produce mineralized skeletons. This is the study with the largest identification of new bryozoan species below a thousand meters deep –that is, in the continental slope- in the Argentine Patagonia, an area where most of the identified species had been found above five hundred meters. The new species were collected during five oceanographic campaigns –from 2008 to 2010- of IEO’s ATLANTIS Project, on board the research vessel Miguel Oliver (Spanish Secretary-General for Fisheries), and obtained from 25 sampling sites, between 138 and 1650 meters deep, in the Southwestern Atlantic.
Image: The new species Mawatarius avilae pays tribute to the lecturer Conxita Ávila (UB-IRBio).