Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful to the following friends and colleagues for providing us with some of the samples used in this study: Piotr Gąsiorek and Daniel Stec (Jagiellonian University, Poland), Reinhardt M. Kristensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Diane Nelson (East Tennessee State University, USA), Paul Bartels (Warren Wilson College, USA), Maarten Christenhusz (Curtin University, Australia/Plant Gateway, UK), Maciej Barczyk (SBiK-F, Germany) and Yevgen Kiosya. The samples were collected under permits No: CN35-285316, OP 3570/2018 and within a project “Reconstruction of the phylogeny of the order Apochela (Tardigrada: Eutardigrada)” carried within iSimangaliso Wetland Park, RSA, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; all to WM. We are deeply grateful to Carol Simon (Stellenbosch University, RSA) for her invaluable help with the field sampling in South Africa. The study was supported by the Polish National Science Centre via the Sonata Bis programme (grant no. 2016/22/E/NZ8/00417 to ŁM) and via the Preludium grant (no. 2019/35/N/NZ8/04487 to WM, supervised by ŁM). WM is a recipient of the Etiuda stipend (2020/36/T/NZ8/00306, funded by the Polish National Science Centre). Open-access publication of this article was funded by the BioS Priority Research Area under the programme “Excellence Initiative – Research University” at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.