Phaeogromids of the mesopelagic marine plankton: Temporal variability of concentrations and observations of feeding structures of four species from the mesopelagic in the Mediterranean Sea.

Challengerids, phaeogromids rhizarian protists, are emblematic protists of the deep sea but are also enigmatic as they occur in very low concentrations. In previous studies, we reported on temporal changes in abundance at a near-shore mesopelagic site, but only as part of sampling of the entire microplankton assemblage, not well-suited for examining phaeogromids. Consequently, we turned to using a closing plankton net to provide material from large volumes of seawater, thus allowing for more robust estimates of concentrations and material for observations of living cells, to our knowledge the first made. Here, we report our results on the four most commonly occurring species: Challengeranium diadon, Challengereron willemoesii, Challengeria xiphodon, and Euphysetta lucani. In contrast to our previous report, we found that changes in concentrations were not related to water column stratification, and the four species roughly co-varied with time. Observations of live cells revealed that all four species deploy tentacle-like pseudopods and also very large unstructured webs of fine pseudopods. The similarities in feeding webs suggest similar prey are exploited, and the similar temporal changes in abundances suggest a common factor or factors (unknown at this time) govern their concentrations. Films of live cells are provided in Supplementary Files.