Sandra Mcinnes
British Antarctic Survey, Life Sciences, Faculty Member
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The main subject of my papers has been the phylum Tardigrada, with particular emphasis on the Antarctic fauna. While this is one of the ‘lesser known phyla’ the group forms an important element of Antarctic non-marine ecosystems. My work... more
The main subject of my papers has been the phylum Tardigrada, with particular emphasis on the Antarctic fauna. While this is one of the ‘lesser known phyla’ the group forms an important element of Antarctic non-marine ecosystems. My work has centred on four interrelated themes: i) taxonomy, predominantly Tardigrada and with an Antarctic bias though including wider global species and high taxon groupings (I have also worked on other taxa such as Fungi-imperfecti and freshwater invertebrates); ii) biodiversity of tardigrades, particularly Antarctic habitats; iii) data-based studies based on the terrestrial Tardigrada and Antarctic freshwater crustaceans; and iv) biogeographic analysis of these databases. The thesis presented consists of papers published in major, peer-reviewed journals, along with book chapters published and in press. Several of my papers have been cited 10-30 times according to the ISI Web of Science citation system. Highlights of my work include being the first to publish a paper on the global terrestrial biogeography of a phylum and showing the extant limno-terrestrial tardigrade fauna reflect the early tectonic break-up of the Laurasia, West and East Gondwana super continents between 65 and 135 million years ago.
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Research Interests: Zoology, Biology, Ecology, Biogeography, Systematics, and 3 moreTardigrada, Tardigrade, and Cryptobiosis
Research Interests: Zoology, Paleontology, Biology, Ecology, Biogeography, and 3 moreMolecular clock, Vicariance, and Taxon
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Antarctica has been isolated and progressively glaciated for over 30 million years, with only approximately 0.3 % of its area currently ice-free and capable of supporting terrestrial ecosystems. As a result, invertebrate populations have... more
Antarctica has been isolated and progressively glaciated for over 30 million years, with only approximately 0.3 % of its area currently ice-free and capable of supporting terrestrial ecosystems. As a result, invertebrate populations have become isolated and fragmented, in some cases leading to speciation. Terrestrial invertebrate species currently found in Antarctica often show multi-million year, and even Gondwanan, heritage, with little evidence of recent colonisation. Mesobiotus is a globally distributed tardigrade genus. It has commonly been divided into two "groups", referred to as harmsworthi and furciger, with both groups currently considered cosmopolitan, with global reports including from both the Arctic and the Antarctic. However, some authors considered that Meb. furciger, as originally described, may represent an Antarctic-specific lineage. Using collections of tardigrades from across the Antarctic continent and publicly available sequences obtained from online databases, we use mitochondrial and nuclear ribosomal sequence data to clarify the relationships of Antarctic Mesobiotus species. Our analyses show that all Antarctic members belong to a single lineage, evolving separately from non-Antarctic representatives. Within this Antarctic lineage there are further deep divisions among geographic regions of the continent, consistent with the presence of a species complex. Based on our data confirming the deep divisions between this Antarctic lineage, which includes representatives of both groups, we recommend that the use of furciger and harmsworthi group terminology is now abandoned, as it leads to systematic and biogeographical confusion. (Bertolani et al., 2014; Itang et al., 2020; Kaczmarek et al., 2018; Kayastha et al., 2021; Mapalo et al., 2017, 2016; Roszkowska et al., 2018; Stec, 2019; Stec et al., 2018; Stec and Kristensen, 2017; Tumanov, 2020).
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FIGURE 3. A – F, Hebesuncus ryani. A. Bucco-pharyngeal apparatus (first paratype, slide No. 4301). B. Details of leg III external claw of a second paratype (slide No. 4301). C. Leg IV claws of the first paratype (slide No. 4301). D. Egg... more
FIGURE 3. A – F, Hebesuncus ryani. A. Bucco-pharyngeal apparatus (first paratype, slide No. 4301). B. Details of leg III external claw of a second paratype (slide No. 4301). C. Leg IV claws of the first paratype (slide No. 4301). D. Egg (slide No. 4302). E. and F. Details of the same egg. Arrows indicate transparent areas in the egg processes. G. Egg of Hebesuncus schusteri (slide No. 3280). Scale bar = 10 µm.
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Antarctica contains some of the most challenging environmental conditions on the planet due to freezing temperatures, prolonged winters and lack of liquid water. Whereas 99.7% of Antarctica is permanently covered by ice and snow, some... more
Antarctica contains some of the most challenging environmental conditions on the planet due to freezing temperatures, prolonged winters and lack of liquid water. Whereas 99.7% of Antarctica is permanently covered by ice and snow, some coastal areas and mountain ridges have remained ice-free and are able to sustain populations of microinvertebrates. Tardigrades are one of the more dominant groups of microfauna in soil and limno-terrestrial habitats, but little is known of their diversity and distribution across Antarctica. Here, we examine tardigrades sampled from across an extensive region of continental Antarctica, and analyse and compare their partial mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene sequences with those from the Antarctic Peninsula, maritime and sub-Antarctica, Tierra del Fuego and other worldwide locations in order to recognise operational taxonomic units (OTUs). From 439 new tardigrade COI sequences, we identified 98 unique haplotypes (85 from Antarctica)...
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Research Interests: Biology and Tardigrada
The Snow Petrel Pagodroma nivea is endemic to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, with a circumpolar breeding distribution. A comprehensive review of both the published literature and unpublished records revealed that Snow Petrels have... more
The Snow Petrel Pagodroma nivea is endemic to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, with a circumpolar breeding distribution. A comprehensive review of both the published literature and unpublished records revealed that Snow Petrels have been reported breeding at 298 ...
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Glaciers are inhabited by various cryophilic organisms ranging from single celled to multicellular, like Tardigrada (water bears). Owing to their scattered distribution, glaciers represent extremely fragmented habitats, and it remains... more
Glaciers are inhabited by various cryophilic organisms ranging from single celled to multicellular, like Tardigrada (water bears). Owing to their scattered distribution, glaciers represent extremely fragmented habitats, and it remains unclear how their inhabitants survive and disperse among such isolated patches. This study investigates the biogeography of the tardigrade genus Cryoconicus, whose distribution, population stability, and interregional connectivity are examined by screening the collections from ~ 60 glaciers worldwide and by a phylogeographic analysis. We found that two Cryoconicus species occur at low densities on two Arctic glaciers in Svalbard, far from their previously reported Antarctic and Central Asian ranges. Screening of worldwide databases and DNA metabarcoding indicated that these species are absent or rare in the intermediate areas, suggesting large disjunctions in their ranges. In particular, the genetic data and multiyear resampling showed that Cryoconicus...
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Hexapodibius boothi sp.n., a new species of semi-terrestrial tardigrade from fellfield mineral soil material at the Dundee Island (in the Maritime Antarctic) is described.
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Over the last two decades, Zootaxa has hosted nearly 200 papers concerning tardigrade taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, and evolution. A total of 160 researchers from all continents (except the Antarctic) published descriptions of almost... more
Over the last two decades, Zootaxa has hosted nearly 200 papers concerning tardigrade taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, and evolution. A total of 160 researchers from all continents (except the Antarctic) published descriptions of almost 200 new taxa, mostly species, but also genera and higher taxonomic ranks, such as families and superfamilies. This editorial is dedicated to the late Professor Clark W. Beasley who was the first tardigrade Associate Editor for Zootaxa.
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Research Infrastructures (RIs) are facilities, resources and services used by the scientific community to conduct research and foster innovation. LifeWatch ERIC has developed various virtual research environments, which include many... more
Research Infrastructures (RIs) are facilities, resources and services used by the scientific community to conduct research and foster innovation. LifeWatch ERIC has developed various virtual research environments, which include many virtual laboratories (vLabs) offering high computational capacity and comprehensive collaborative platforms that supporting the needs of digital biodiversity science. Over its 250 years of history, the taxonomic research community has developed a system for describing, classifying and naming taxa across multiple levels. For the marine biota, taxonomic information is organized and made publicly available through the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) that records more than 250,000 described valid species. Although scientists tend to assign an equal status (in terms of contribution to overall diversity) to each taxon used in taxonomy, biogeography, ecology and biodiversity, the question “are all taxa equal?” has never been tested at a global scale. W...
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Cryoconite holes, supraglacial ponds and moulins of the Greenland Ice Sheet were surveyed for microbiota and meiofauna. These habitats are colonised by depauperate communities of widespread/cosmopolitan microbes, microalgae, rotifers and... more
Cryoconite holes, supraglacial ponds and moulins of the Greenland Ice Sheet were surveyed for microbiota and meiofauna. These habitats are colonised by depauperate communities of widespread/cosmopolitan microbes, microalgae, rotifers and tardigrades. All colonists are generalists, pre-adapted to cope with the extreme environmental conditions of, and are effectively stranded in, cryoconite deposits. Cryoconite biota may seed similar local habitats, though it is unlikely that they can escape to colonise new ones, and so they survive in situ until they are ultimately washed into the glacial drainage system.
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A new species of eutardigrade, Hebesuncus mollispinus sp. nov. is described from Charcot Island, maritime Antarctica.The three known species of Hebesuncus are either widespread with questionable reports from the Antarctic (H.conjungens)... more
A new species of eutardigrade, Hebesuncus mollispinus sp. nov. is described from Charcot Island, maritime Antarctica.The three known species of Hebesuncus are either widespread with questionable reports from the Antarctic (H.conjungens) or endemic to maritime and continental Antarctica (H. ryani and H. schusteri). Hebesuncus mollispinus sp.nov. differs from its congeners in terms of egg morphology and is further differentiated from H. ryani via a longer buccopharyngeal tube, claw shape and length; and from H. schusteri via a narrower bucco-pharyngeal tube and shorter claws.
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... 1928 EUROPE (Italy;Sardinia?, Yugoslavia;Istria, Sweden;Lapland, Norway, England, Channel Is., Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Iceland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Alps, Czechoslovakia, Carpathians, France;Pyrenees?, Greece,... more
... 1928 EUROPE (Italy;Sardinia?, Yugoslavia;Istria, Sweden;Lapland, Norway, England, Channel Is., Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Iceland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Alps, Czechoslovakia, Carpathians, France;Pyrenees?, Greece, Portugal;Madeira, Turkey ... 262 SJ Mclnnes ...