Acanthocephalan Diversity and Host Associations Revealed from a Large-Scale Biodiversity Survey

Acanthocephalans constitute a relatively small phylum of dioecious helminths that infect invertebrate intermediate and vertebrate paratenic definitive hosts. Like most parasites, acanthocephalans are usually overlooked in biodiversity studies, although they can have significant impacts on their host’s health the structure surrounding communities. In this study, we present morphological molecular data from an extensive survey infecting range marine animals coastal ecosystem New Zealand. We recovered 13 acanthocephalan species 32 168 free-living animal investigated, 1 which is new geographic record for Zealand (Gorgorhynchoides queenslandensis), 9 host records, at least 2 to science. The presented here provide baseline dataset future assessments changes diversity distribution be compared.