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The organic-walled genera Resigella and Conicotheca (Protista, Foraminifera) at two Arctic deep-sea sites (North Pole and Barents Sea), including the description of a new species of Resigella

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Abstract

We describe a new organic-walled foraminiferan species from the central Arctic Ocean (North Pole; 4,300 m water depth) and the Håkon Mosby Mud Volcano (HMMV) at the south-western Barents Sea continental margin (1,250 m depth) based on morphological features. Resigella polaris sp. nov. has a more or less transparent test, brownish-yellow in colour, less than 200 µm in length, with a length:width ratio of 3.1–4.7, and consisting of 3 droplet-shaped to oval chambers. Morphologically, it is intermediate between R. bilocularis and R. laevis, two species described from an extreme hadal site (Challenger Deep, 10,895 m depth) in the western Pacific Ocean. Another species present at the HMMV is R. moniliforme, the type species of Resigella, which has only been reported once from outside the Pacific. Additionally, our Arctic samples yielded a species of the diminutive, monothalamous, organic-walled genus Conicotheca that is remarkably similar to C. nigrans from the Challenger Deep, despite the considerable geographical and bathymetric gulf between the populations. The abundance of these species, and particularly of R. polaris sp. nov. at the North Pole, probably reflects the oligotrophic character of this ice-covered region.

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Acknowledgements

We greatly appreciate helpful assistance оf the DSRV “Mir” pilots A. Sagalevich and E.Chernjaev (Institute of Oceanology, Moscow) who were cooperative in sharing observations, video records and qualitative sediment samples from the North Pole. We especially appreciate the kindness of Dr. A. Laiba (State Enterprise "Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition" (PMGE), St.-Petersburg) and Dr S. Galkin (Institute of Oceanology, Moscow) who shared the box-corer samples with us. This paper is a contribution to the Oceans 2025 project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, UK, and by the European project HERMIONE. Olga Kamenskaya was also partly supported by grant RFBR N 09-04-01474-a from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, Empress Dock, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK

    Andrew J. Gooday

  2. P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Laboratory of Ocean Benthic Fauna, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Pr., 36, Moscow, 117997, Russia

    Olga E. Kamenskaya

  3. Alfred Wegener Institut für Polar und Meeresforschung, Am Handelshafen 12, 27570, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Thomas Soltwedel

Authors
  1. Andrew J. Gooday
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  2. Olga E. Kamenskaya
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  3. Thomas Soltwedel
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Correspondence to Andrew J. Gooday.

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Gooday, A.J., Kamenskaya, O.E. & Soltwedel, T. The organic-walled genera Resigella and Conicotheca (Protista, Foraminifera) at two Arctic deep-sea sites (North Pole and Barents Sea), including the description of a new species of Resigella . Mar Biodiv 40, 33–44 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-009-0031-6

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