Surpassing barriers to work with deep-sea benthic fauna: Biodiversity genomics of formalin-fixed caudofoveates (Mollusca, Aplacophora)

• Grant number: 25/15341-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: November 25, 2025
• End date: November 24, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Oceanography - Biological Oceanography
• Principal Investigator: Tito Monteiro da Cruz Lotufo
• Grantee: Marcel Sabino Miranda
• Supervisor: Kevin Kocot
• Host Institution: Instituto Oceanográfico (IO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Alabama (UA), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/13237-8 - Unravelling patterns in the Deep Atlantic Ocean: The Brazilian caudofoveate aplacophorans (Mollusca) as ecological and biogeographical models, BP.PD

Abstract

Deep sea areas are still porrly known regarding their biodiversity, because obtaining samples of the animals of these regions is expensive. Moreover, many deep-sea collections use formalin for fixing organisms, resulting in difficult and degraded DNA extractions. Many groups are unique and characteristic of these ecosystems, like the caudofoveate aplacophorans, which are also important for understanding molluscan evolution. Recently, several protocols have made this material feasible to study, enabling the use of formalin-fixed specimens in genetics studies. This proposal aims to analyze and sequence mitochondrial genomes from formalin-fixed specimens of caudofoveate aplacophorans, enhancing current knowledge on this group. The material used in this project comes from campaigns off Santos Basin (Brazil), region with relevant gaps in caudofoveate knowledge. The material will be submitted to Illumina Nextera XT sequencing libraries to do shotgun sequencing of mitochondrial genomes. This study will provide important genetic information, useful for future taxonomic descriptions, as well as biogeographic and phylogenetic research.