Five newly recorded foraminifera from off the southern coast of Jeju Island, Korea

Abstract

Foraminifera are unicellular eukaryotes usually with calcareous or agglutinated tests, distributed in diverse marine environments (Sen Gupta, 2003; Murray, 2006). Since foraminifera are one of the dominant organisms in the benthic environments, and exhibit wide range of feeding mechanisms, they are regarded as one of the key groups in the marine food web (Gooday et al., 1992; Moodley et al., 2000; Debenay, 2012; Chronopoulou et al., 2019). Foraminifera are one of the most sensitive organisms to environmental change and their assemblage is closely related to environmental factors (Murray, 2006; Sabbatini et al., 2012). Therefore, research on diversity and community structure of foraminifera is important for understanding the marine environment (Annin, 2001; Albani et al., 2007). To date, 8,857 species of marine extant foraminifera have been reported worldwide (WoRMS, 2020) and 1,192 species have been reported in Korea (NIBR, 2020). Since the 1,192 species include some of fossil species and synonyms, a clear understanding of species diversity of modern foraminifera in Korea is necessary. In this regard, Kim et al. (2016) documented 818 extant benthic species through a literature survey and emphasized the high possibility of additional discoveries of unrecorded species through further investigations. Indeed, in 2017, 30 unrecorded species were reported from the western and eastern coasts of Korea (Lee et al., 2017), and in 2019, one new species and three newly recorded species were reported from the northern East Sea and southern Jeju Island (Lee and Lee, 2019; Lee et al., 2019). In the present study, we report five unrecorded species discovered from off the southern coast of Jeju Island, with brief diagnosis and photomicrographs.