RUI: A Survey of the Moss Dwelling Tardigrades of China

瑞：对中国苔藓栖息迟缓的调查威廉·R·米勒、克拉克·比斯利和马歇尔·克罗斯比迟滞或水熊是生活在苔藓中的小型动物，表现出隐生性，耐受极端高温、寒冷、压力和其他恶劣环境条件的非凡能力。通常不到1英里长，缓慢移动的迟滞动物就像一只可爱的微型熊或毛毛虫。它们在每个大陆的苔藓、地衣、土壤或海洋沉积物中都有发现。它们的隐生生命阶段被定义为可逆的新陈代谢暂停，可能持续数十年。虽然在隐生物作用下干燥，迟滞在实验上经历了-272℃到+150℃之间的温度，6000个大气压，完全真空，高辐射，常见的情况，但它们仍然回到了活跃的生命阶段。这些结果引发了生理和进化方面的猜测，包括这种动物可能被运送到太空的能力。然而，迟滞的生态需求和生活周期仍然知之甚少，它们被怀疑是被风带到世界各地的，但它们的全球分布模式非常不完整。例如，在950多种已描述的迟滞物种中，只有47种报告出现在中国身上。相比之下，已知有500多种物种出现在欧洲的逆风方向。尽管水熊的数量经常很多，但它们对地球生命网的贡献仍然是一个谜。该项目将在宾夕法尼亚州费城的切斯特纳特山学院和德克萨斯州阿比林的麦克默里大学发展本科生研究团队。两个团队将对中国的成绩进行调查，在四年的时间里，20多名学生研究人员将收集、识别并发表在该项目中。首先，团队将从密苏里州植物园收集的10,000个苔藓样本中提取迟滞物种，这些样本是由美国国家科学基金会资助的“中国的苔藓植物群”项目中的。其次，团队将与中国科学院的一名成员合作，前往中国进行考察，并额外收集2000个标本。最后，团队将在费城的自然科学院建立并记录凭证收集。团队将通过增加多达300种迟滞物种来增加我们对中国动物的了解，从而为了解全球多样性做出贡献。我们的学生可能会发现和描述许多新的和特有的物种。我们将扩大对动物生态需求的理解，并检验与局部、区域和全球分布和空间格局有关的几个假说。这些数据将被添加到新的迟滞教育和研究参考中心网站上。最终的产品将是一个基于数据的、数字化的、可打印的中国迟滞目录，包括描述、图像、识别密钥、地理参考和参考书目。这样的参考资源将帮助世界各地的分类学家、生态学家、生物地理学家、教师和学生，他们将能够在评估研究、教育、实验和发现中使用迟滞。

RUI: A SURVEY OF THE MOSS DWELLING TARDIGRADES OF CHINAWilliam R. Miller, Clark Beasley, and Marshall CrosbyTardigrades or water bears are small moss dwelling animals that exhibitcryptobiosis, the remarkable ability to withstand extreme heat, cold,pressure and other severe environmental conditions. Generally less than 1 mmin length, the slow moving tardigrade resembles a cute miniature bear orcaterpillar. They are found on every continent in the moisture trapped bymoss, lichen, soil, or marine sediments. Their cryptobiotic life stage hasbeen defined as the reversible suspension of metabolism and may last fordecades. While desiccated in cryptobiosis, tardigrades have beenexperimentally subjected to temperatures between -272 C and +150 C, to 6000atmospheres of pressure, to complete vacuum, to high radiation, to commongases, and still they returned to an active life stage. These resultskindle both physiological and evolutionary speculation, including thepossible ability of the animal to be transported through space. Yet, theecological requirements and life cycles of tardigrades remain little known.They are suspected of being carried around the world by the winds, but theirglobal distributional patterns are very incomplete. For example, only 47out of 950+ described species of tardigrades have been reported as occurringin China. By comparison over 500 species are known to occur upwind inEurope. Although water bears are often abundant, their contribution to thelife web of the planet is still a mystery. This project will developundergraduate research teams at Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, PA, andMcMurry University, Abilene, TX. The teams will conduct a survey of thetardigrades of China, and over four years, more than 20 student researcherswill collect, identify and publish in the project. First, the teams willextract tardigrades from the 10,000 moss samples collected by the MissouriBotanical Garden in their NSF-funded "Moss Flora of China" project. Second,the teams will conduct an expedition to China in collaboration with a memberof the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and collect 2000 additional samples.Finally, the teams will work at the Academy of Natural Sciences inPhiladelphia to build and document a voucher collection.The teams will contribute to the understanding of global diversity by addingpossibly as many as 300 species of tardigrades to our knowledge of theChinese fauna. Our students will probably discover and describe many newand endemic species. We will expand the understanding of the ecologicalrequirements of the animals and test several hypotheses relative to local,regional, and global distributional and spatial patterns. The data will beadded to the new Tardigrade Reference Center web site for tardigradeeducation and research. The ultimate product will be a data based, digital,and printable catalogue to the Tardigrades of China, complete withdescriptions, images, identification keys, geo-referencing, andbibliography. Such a reference resource will aid taxonomists, ecologists,biogeographers, teachers, and students all over the world who will be ableto use tardigrades in assessment studies, education, experiments, anddiscovery.