Expedition, August 16 – 24, 2018

The expedition was aimed at search for the relict species of annelids, Acanthobdella peledina, and study of species and genetic diversity of hirudofauna of the Lena River basin.

The expeditionary group consisted of Cand. Sc. (Biology) Irina Kaygorodova and postgraduate student Aleksandr Bolbat. They have collected various populations of parasitic annelids in the spawning areas of whitefishes: rivers Lena, Chechuy and Rassokha. The collected material will be used for the morphological (identification and morphological phylogeny) and molecular analysis (molecular phylogeny, DNA barcoding and whole genome sequencing) during which a phylogenetically grounded classification system of parasitic annelids taxa will be constructed, and a bank of DNA markers to identify widespread and rare species will be created.