Meeting Abstract
Sea spiders (Pycnogonida, Chelicerata) form a basal clade within the phylum Arthropoda that includes over 1300 species to date, with over 260 described from the Southern Ocean. Of the 264 species in the Antarctic, 108 are noted to be endemic to the region. Previous studies in the literature have found that Antarctic biodiversity is underrepresented due to sampling logistics and lack of research collections from many regions of the Southern Ocean. Additionally, sea spider identification based on morphology alone is in many cases unreliable and many cryptic species lineages have been discovered. This study aims to add to the current inventory of Antarctic sea spiders through the use of molecular barcode data and includes samples collected from throughout the Western Antarctic (Antarctic Peninsula, the Amundson, Bellingshausen and Ross Seas). With the molecular barcodes generated by this study, we will also covariate data for specimens collected to add to the biological knowledge of our species in question (location, depth, and habitat types where available). This study will increase the knowledge of Antarctic sea spiders, including cryptic species and it will improve our overall understanding of Southern Ocean faunal biodiversity and evolutionary relationships
