Meeting Abstract

P2-29   -   Diversity and distribution of marine cryptic species across the world’s oceans Tran, B V*; Chenuil, A; Cahill, AE; Albion College; Aix Marseille Univ, Avignon Université, CNRS, IRD, IMBE, Station Marine d’Endoume; Albion College bvt10@albion.edu

Cryptic species are nominal biological species without morphological differences. Many marine cryptic species are believed to be still unknown or miscategorized, and systematic work about their frequency and distribution is lacking. Failing to acknowledge and recognize CS can have consequences for our understanding of diversification processes and ecology, including calculating basic parameters of species diversity and richness. We conducted this research to answer long-standing questions about marine CS richness and diversity in the five major oceans of the world. We extracted occurrence data for all marine animals from OBIS (Ocean Biodiversity Information System) with a world oceans map created based on Marine Regions, and processed and analyzed data with R programming. A prior literature review identified 675 cases of marine metazoan CS, allowing us to compare patterns of CS distribution with that of all marine animals. We found that the richness of CS is higher than expected in the Arctic Ocean and lower than expected in the Pacific Ocean. Nominal species in the Arctic and Indian Oceans are more likely to have cryptic species than other ocean basins. Second, we found that the beta diversity of cryptic species is significantly lower than the beta diversity of all species except in the Pacific Ocean, where they are not different. That is, in all oceans besides the Pacific, CS are more broadly distributed than other species. This result aligns with the high number of islands and coral reefs in the Pacific, which may allow CS to have smaller distributions in this ocean. It also aligns with a recent finding that CS are more likely to be found in nominal species with larger geographic ranges. With this systematic view of CS distributions and diversity, we will be able to have a better understanding of biodiversity, which can lead to more efficient species conservation and monitoring.