Author Description

"The phylum Nematoda Cobb, 1932, also known as roundworms, is the most abundant metazoan taxon in aquatic sediments worldwide, as well as one of the most diverse. Despite their ubiquitous distribution, our knowledge of nematode taxonomy and diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand, and in particular, free-living species in marine sediments, remains very limited. The nematode fauna of New Zealand's marine environments, ranging from the most accessible beaches to abyssal plains, remains poorly known, with the total biodiversity of the free-living marine nematode fauna in the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone estimated at several thousand species. Prior to this work, the total number of free-living marine nematode species known from the New Zealand region was 190 species."--