Xylocythere sarrazinae, a new cytherurid ostracod (Crustacea) from a hydrothermal vent field on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, northeast Pacific Ocean, and its phylogenetic position within Cytheroidea

Abstract

This paper described Xylocythere sarrazinae sp. nov. (Ostracoda: Cytheroidea: Cytheruridae: Eucytherurinae), collected at 2196 m depth from the Grotto hydrothermal edifice (Main Endeavor Field, Juan de Fuca Ridge) in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. This new species was found living in association with Ridgeia piscesae tubeworm assemblages. It is the second representative of Xylocythere described from such vents. Xylocythere sarrazinae sp. nov. is easily distinguished from the seven described species of Xylocythere by the surface ornamentations of its carapace, with the most similar species to it being Xylocythere pointillissima Maddocks & Steineck, 1987. However, Xylocythere sarrazinae sp. nov can be distinguished from X. pointillissima based on the following characters: having a subsquare basal capsule outline, a spatulate upper ramus, a flattened distal lobe of the male copulatory organ, and having 15 maxillula branchial plate setae. We found that one specimen of this new species had multiple spherical objects associated with the internal openings of its pore clusters. These objects were quite similar in shape to that of chemoautotrophic bacteria, which were previously reported from the outer surfaces of pore clusters in other Xylocythere species. Finally, we provided a preliminary phylogenetic analysis of this new species based on 18S rRNA gene sequences to determine the phylogenetic position of the subfamily Eucytherurinae within the superfamily Cytheroidea. This analysis revealed that Xylocythere (Eucytherurinae) may be the most ancestral lineage among the Cytheruridae and identified paraphyletic relationships among the three subfamilies within Cytheruridae. This result supported certain previous studies’ conclusions based on morphology and fossil records.