Mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal widespread tardigrade diversity in Antarctica

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers and Lukasz Kaczmarek for their valued feedback for improving the manuscript. This research was partly funded and supported by the Australian Antarctic Division (http://www.antarctica.gov.au/) Project (ASAC Project 2355 to MIS). We would like to thank The University of Adelaide (http://www.sciences.adelaide.edu.au/) for a PhD scholarship to AVC and the South Australian Museum Mawson Trust for providing funding for the Sir Douglas Mawson Doctoral Scholarship (http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/). We deeply thank the Australian Antarctic Stations' leaders and personnel who contributed to logistics and support of our field work in Antarctica. We also thank Rebecca Stonor, Maria Manjarrez, Pauline Glocke, Tanya Matic (The University of Adelaide) and Federica Colombo for their ongoing laboratory support. We also appreciate the assistance with phylogenetic packages given by Mohammad Javidkar. We are grateful to the DNA sequencing agencies BOLD and the CCDB. We would like to thank Peter Convey, Paul Geissler (British Antarctic Survey) for collecting and providing soil samples from Antarctic Peninsula, and to Allan Green, Leopoldo Sancho and Ana Pintado (Complutense University of Madrid) for supplying soil samples from TF and laboratory facilities. We are extremely grateful to Chester Sands for reviewing the paper and providing feedback, for facilitating soil samples from AP and Dronning Maud Land and for providing sequences from Ronne sector, maritime and sub-Antarctica. All samples were collected under appropriate collection permits and approved ethics guidelines.