Deep Sea Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThis jellyfish, the trachymedusan subspecies Botrynema brucei ellinorae, has two different shapes depending on which area it occurs in \u2013 one with a distinctive knob at the top and one without,\u201d Dr Montenegro said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth types occur in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, but specimens without a knob have never been found south of the North Atlantic Drift region, which extends from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland eastwards to north-western Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study used historical observations, photographic records and genetic analyses to examine the distribution of the jellyfish around the world.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that genetic data linked the specimens both with and without a knob in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions to specimens with a knob found in the subtropical western Atlantic region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe differences in shape, despite strong genetic similarities across specimens, above and below 47 degrees north hint at the existence of an unknown deep-sea bio-geographic barrier in the Atlantic Ocean,\u201d Dr Montenegro said.<\/p>\n
The findings suggest that a semi-permeable\u00a0 barrier is located in the North Atlantic Drift region.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could keep specimens without a knob confined to the north while allowing the free transit of specimens with a knob further south, with the knob possibly giving a selective advantage against predators outside the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions,\u201d Dr Montenegro said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe presence of two specimens with distinctive shapes within a single genetic lineage highlights the need to study more about the biodiversity of gelatinous marine animals.\u201d <\/p>\n
The potential existence of a semi-permeable biogeographical barrier associated with the North Atlantic Drift has important consequences for understanding patterns of biodiversity, species evolutionary processes and their dispersal across ocean basins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The distribution of a deep-sea jellyfish species with two different traits hints at the existence of an unknown…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":100953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[10717,17358,37172,65771,65773,65768,815,52860,65770,6575,65769,936,159,65772,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-100952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-arctic","9":"tag-atlantic","10":"tag-barrier","11":"tag-bio-geographic","12":"tag-biodiveristy","13":"tag-deep-sea","14":"tag-genetics","15":"tag-jellyfish","16":"tag-knob","17":"tag-marine","18":"tag-north-atlantic-ocean","19":"tag-ocean","20":"tag-science","21":"tag-sub-arctic","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114934214162826653","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}