Marcos Rubal
José M. Guerra-García
Juan Moreira
Carlos Navarro-Barranco
Macarena Ros
Puri Veiga- 1Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), University of Porto, Matosinhos, Portugal
- 2Laboratorio de Biología Marina, Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain
- 3Departamento de Biología (Unidad de Zoología), Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Editorial on the Research Topic
Biodiversity and Distribution of Benthic Invertebrates - From Taxonomy to Ecological Patterns and Global Processes
Biodiversity loss due to human activities is increasing worldwide at an alarming rate, and the oceans are not an exception to this pattern (O'Hara et al., 2021). Biodiversity loss weakens the ability of ecosystems to function efficiently and can influence their capacity to provide vital goods and services to humanity (Roe, 2019). We are still far away from a complete inventory of all habitats and lifeforms harbored by Earth's oceans. With the exception of few charismatic (e.g., corals), commercially valuable (e.g., mussels or oysters) or harmful (e.g., jellyfish) invertebrate species, general public and scientific community attention is focused on vertebrates (Troudet et al., 2017). However, invertebrate phyla represent about 75 % of all described animal species both in ocean and land (Eisenhauer and Hines, 2021). The marine benthic realm is one of the largest and probably more diverse habitats on Earth, harboring a huge taxonomical and functional diversity of invertebrates (Snelgrove, 1999, 2016). Unfortunately, knowledge about patterns of biodiversity of benthic invertebrates is still very focused on the most accessible intertidal and shallow subtidal domains; there is also a geographic bias because large areas of the planet remain almost unexplored as well, and because research efforts often focus in well-known biodiversity hotspots (Mugnai et al., 2021).
The main objective of this special topic collection is to improve our knowledge in the above-described gaps on benthic invertebrate biodiversity. We have selected 15 articles by 82 authors encompassing a wide range of phyla and including 12 (ten species, one genus and one family) new invertebrate taxa. Therefore, we are also contributing to the overwhelming but urgent need of discovering and describing as much invertebrate species as possible. Specifically, the new family and five new species belong to deep-sea tanaids (Gellert et al.); three new amphipods and one tanaid came from phytal habitats in an oceanic island (Iwasa-Arai et al.) and the last new species is an harpaticoid copepod described by integrative taxonomy (Yeom et al.). The collection also includes: (1) a comprehensive revision of the poorly studied deep-sea wood-borer bivalves by Romano et al. which resulted in the erection of a new genus while providing important biogeographical information, (2) a revision of the ecology and taxonomy of the amphipod genus Ampelisca from the North-East Atlantic (Dauvin et al.), which provided valuable insights on these ecologically relevant and diverse benthic crustaceans, and (3) two analyses of the role of ecosystem engineers and its conservation in shaping invertebrate biodiversity, focusing on the reef-building annelids of the genus Sabellaria (Muller et al.; van der Reijden et al.). Muller et al. together with Srinivas et al. (who studied amphipods in coralline habitats within a Marine Protected Area) also compared functional diversity with taxonomic diversity patterns, and their relevance for biodiversity management.
The collection also incorporates analyses of the effect of human disturbances on natural biodiversity patterns. These include the value of long-term monitoring of intertidal invertebrates in detecting climate change effects (Mieszkowska et al.) and that of soft bottom infauna and epifauna as quality indicators in an industrial harbor (Dreujou et al.) and an estuary (Isabel et al.). We have also selected two articles on economically relevant species: (1) on the role of intraspecific diversity in the fitness and adaptation of different population of Crassostrea ariakensis (Li et al.) and (2) on the genetic diversity of different oyster species from a relevant culture area (Liu et al.). The last article provides new evidence on the poorly studied deep-water emergence of many species along the Chilean coasts, changing our traditional view on the relationship between bathymetry and invertebrate distribution (Häussermann et al.).
There are still many unexplored gaps in the knowledge of benthic invertebrate diversity, hindered, for example, by the complex logistics and budgetary constraints of deep-sea exploration or the lack of experts in invertebrate taxa (Boero, 2010). In fact, many gaps identified in the topic description, such as the invertebrate biodiversity in scarcely studied habitats (e.g., marine caves) or among poorly known taxa (e.g., soft bodied meiofaunal gastrotrichs, gnatostomulids, etc.) were not included in this volume due to the lack of submitted manuscripts.
Therefore, we would like to highlight that only by improving our understanding on invertebrate biodiversity, we will be able to improve our ability to manage and preserve marine biodiversity. Having this in mind, we have compiled this volume hoping both to encourage more research in this particular field and to boost benthic diversity knowledge globally.
Author Contributions
MR planned and wrote the text. All authors contributed to the discussion and writing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Funding
PV was hired through the Regulamento do Emprego Científico e Tecnológico—RJEC from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) Program (CEECIND/03893/2018). This study was partially funded by the FCT, Portugal Strategic Funding UID/Multi/04423/2019.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's Note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to all the authors, referees and Frontiers' staff who made this volume possible. Authors are grateful to DM for his valuable suggestions on this manuscript.
References
Boero, F. (2010). The study of species in the era of biodiversity: a tale of stupidity. Diversity 2, 115–126. doi: 10.3390/d2010115
Eisenhauer, N., and Hines, J. (2021). Invertebrate biodiversity and conservation. Curr. Biol. 31, 1214–1278. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.058
Mugnai, F., Meglécz, E., Costantini, F., Abbiati, M., Bavestrello, G., Bertasi, F., et al. (2021). Are well-studied marine biodiversity hotspots still blackspots for animal barcoding? Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 32, e01909. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01909
O'Hara, C. C., Frazier, M., and Halper, B. S. (2021). At-risk marine biodiversity faces extensive, expanding, and intensifying human impacts. Science 372, 84–87. doi: 10.1126/science.abe6731
Roe, D. (2019). Biodiversity loss—more than an environmental emergency. Lancet Planet Health 3, e287–e289. doi: 10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30113-5
Snelgrove, P. V. R. (1999). Getting to the bottom of marine biodiversity: sedimentary habitats. Bioscience 49, 129–138. doi: 10.2307/1313538
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Keywords: macrobenthos, meiobenthos, anthropogenic disturbances, natural variability, environmental drivers
Citation: Rubal M, Guerra-García JM, Moreira J, Navarro-Barranco C, Ros M and Veiga P (2022) Editorial: Biodiversity and Distribution of Benthic Invertebrates - From Taxonomy to Ecological Patterns and Global Processes. Front. Mar. Sci. 9:863981. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2022.863981
Received: 27 January 2022; Accepted: 03 February 2022;
Published: 28 February 2022.
Edited and reviewed by: Daniel Martin, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
Copyright © 2022 Rubal, Guerra-García, Moreira, Navarro-Barranco, Ros and Veiga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Marcos Rubal, marcos.garcia@fc.up.pt