Within the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), the effect of global warming has had a more intense and rapid effect than any other region of the Antarctic and as such the focus of this study was to investigate the soft sediment meiofaunal communities from six locations along the Gerlache strait of the WAP, using an Environmental DNA metabarcoding approach. The diversity, community composition and structure of both eukaryotic phyla and nematode genera across these previously unsampled and ecologically diverse sites was characterised. The results of the eDNA metabarcoding analysis combined with the visual and environmental characteristics of the sampling sites, reveal a clear difference in Eukaryota and Nematoda ASV community composition. Furthermore, there appears to be a high degree of niche partitioning amongst the Antarctic nematode genera between these environmentally disparate sites, along the Gerlache Strait of the WAP.
Key Words: Western Antarctic Peninsula, Environmental DNA, Eukaryota, Nematoda, diversity.
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