Pinpointing the microbiota of tardigrades: What is really there?

Microbiota are considered significant in the biology of tardigrades, yet their diversity and distribution remain largely unexplored. This is partly due to the methodological challenges associated with studying the microbiota of small organisms that inhabit microbe-rich environments. In our study, we characterized the microbiota of 31 species of cultured tardigrades using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing.

"Everything is not everywhere": Time-calibrated phylogeography of the genus Milnesium (Tardigrada).

There is ample evidence that macroscopic animals form geographic clusters termed as zoogeographic realms, whereas distributions of species of microscopic animals are still poorly understood. The common view has been that micrometazoans, thanks to their putatively excellent dispersal abilities, are subject to the "Everything is everywhere but environment selects" hypothesis (EiE). One of such groups, <1 mm in length, are limnoterrestrial water bears (Tardigrada), which can additionally enter cryptobiosis that should further enhance their potential for long distance dispersion (e.

What If Multiple Claw Configurations Are Present in A Sample? A Case Study with the Description of sp. nov. (Tardigrada) with Unique Developmental Variability.

The tardigrade fauna of Iceland has been a subject of studies since mid XX century. So far, only a single species of the genus has been reported from the island, , which at the time was assumed to have a cosmopolitan distribution. However, the record comes from before the redescription of , thus the validity of the Icelandic report is questionable.