  Galaxy mergers and interactions are expected to play a significant role
leading to offsets between gas and stellar motions in galaxies. Herein we
crossmatch galaxies in MaNGA MPL-8 with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic
Instrument (DESI) Legacy Surveys and identify 311 merging galaxies that have
reliable measurements of the $\Delta$PA, the difference between the stellar and
gas kinematic position angles to investigate the impacts of merging on
gas-stellar rotation misalignments. We find that the merging fractions of
misaligned galaxies (30$^\circ$ $\leqslant$ $\Delta$PA $<$150$^\circ$) are
higher than that of co-rotators ($\Delta$PA $<$ 30$^\circ$) in both quiescent
and star-forming galaxies. This result suggests that merging is one process to
produce kinematic misalignments. The merging fraction of counter-rotators
($\Delta$PA $\leqslant$ 150$^\circ$) is lower than that of misaligned galaxies
in both quiescent and star-forming galaxies, while in the latter it is likely
even lower than that of co-rotators. The orbital angular momentum transfer to
the spins of stars and gas during merging and the tidal feature disappearance
can lead to small merging fractions in counter-rotators. Numerous new stars
that inherit angular momentum from gas after merging can further lower the
merging fraction of star-forming counter-rotators.
