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":2,"featured_media":44186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[35160,9170,35158,35159,35162,35155,200,20528,35157,20281,35156,6202,79,35161],"class_list":["post-44185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-arctic","tag-atlantic","tag-barrier","tag-bio-geographic","tag-biodiveristy","tag-deep-sea","tag-genetics","tag-jellyfish","tag-knob","tag-marine","tag-north-atlantic-ocean","tag-ocean","tag-science","tag-sub-arctic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}