The HI properties of galaxies in the Coma I cloud revisited

Context: Pre-processing within small groups has been proposed to explain several of the properties of galaxies lying in rich clusters.
Aims: The aim of the present work is to see whether pre-processing is acting in the nearby universe, where the structures that are merging to form rich clusters are large and massive.
Methods: We study the HI gas properties of a large sample of late-type galaxies belonging to the Coma I cloud, an association of objects close to the Virgo cluster.
Results: Contrary to what was previously claimed, late-type galaxies in the Coma I cloud are not deficient in HI gas (HI - def=0.06± 0.44).
Conclusions: If the Coma I cloud is representative of infalling groups in nearby clusters, this result suggests that, in the local universe, the evolution of late-type galaxies belonging to loose structures with high velocity dispersions (≥ 300 km s^-1) associated with rich clusters such as Virgo is not significantly perturbed by pre-processing.