Description of two free-living nematode species of Halomonhystera disjuncta complex (Nematoda: Monhysterida) from two peculiar habitats in the sea

Morphological descriptions of two Halomonhystera species (Nematoda, Monhysterida) are presented (Halomonhystera hermesi and Halomonhystera socialis). Halomonhystera hermesi sp. n. occurs in a dense monospecific and homogeneous population on bacterial mats in the HAyenkon Mosby mud volcano in the Barents Sea at a depth of 1,280 m. The species is an endemic lineage distinctly separated from other shallow-water cryptotaxa of the Halomonhystera disjucta species complex on the base of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase subunit I (genetic divergence 19.6-23.8 %) and nuclear genetic markers, and on the base of morphometrics by Van Campenhout et al. (2014). H. socialis (Butschli 1874) is redescribed on the basis of White Sea specimens. This species dwells in mass on the detached kelp accumulation in the upper sublittoral. H. socialis is differentiated from other species of the Halomonhystera disjuncta complex morphometrically by a larger body size and by genetic divergence in nuclear markers. The genus Halomonhystera Andrassy 2006 is redefined, and its morphospecies list is reviewed. Species H. bathislandica (Riemann 1995) comb. n., H. fisheri (Zekely et al. 2006) comb. n., H. islandica (De Coninck 1943) comb. n. and H. vandoverae (Zekely et al. 2006) comb. n. are transferred to Halomonhystera from Thalassomonhystera; H. paradisjuncta (de Coninck 1943) comb. n., H. rotundicapitata (Filipjev 1922) comb. n. and H. taurica (Tsalolikhin 2007) comb. n. transferred to Halomonhystera from Geomonhystera. Halomonhystera ambiguoides (Butschli 1874) is considered as species inquirenda because of incompleteness of its diagnosis.

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