A glimpse into some sea cucumbers in Panay, Philippines

Except for coastal dwellers, most Filipinos do not know what sea cucumbers are, although most must have dined on them at some time. A description is given of what sea cucumbers are and how they look, how they are processed and how they are cultured. Sea cucumbers, which belong to the families Holothuridae and Stichopodidae, have a worldwide distribution and are found in large numbers in the Indo-West Pacific region. In the Philippines, sea cucumbers have never been cultured, although it is one of the sources of dried sea cucumbers in the international market. This is most probably due to the fact that wild supply has apparently been sufficient for trading.

The rediscovery of Notopoides latus Henderson in the western Indian Ocean (Crustacea-Decapoda, Raninidae)

The small brachyuran family Raninidae Dana is represented in the Indo-West Pacific region by eight genera, with only some twenty species. One of the least known genera is Notopoides, which contains only a single species. This genus was first described by Henderson (1888) on the basis of material collected by H.M.S. "Challenger" from the Kei Islands, in the Banda sea off Indonesia. There have been no subsequent reports of this species in the ninety seven years since its original discovery. During the course of the study of the benthic fauna off the coast of East Africa, the Fisheries Research Vessel "Manihine" obtained five specimens of this rare species. These new records, collected during a short period of time, indicate that the species is probably not uncommon in this region, which also represents a great increase in its known geographical range. Specimens have been deposited in the collections of the National Museum, Nairobi, the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, and the National Museum, Singapore: Catalogue numbers are crust. 1092 ; Crust. D. 28567; NMS. 1972.8.4.1, male of 35x26 respectively.

A new species of Tortanus (Atortus) (Copepoda: Calanoida) from the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar

A new species of the planktonic copepod Tortanus (Atortus) (Calanoida: Tortanidae), T. (A.) magnonyx is described from Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar. This is the sixth species of the Indian Ocean recticauda species group, of the Indo-West Pacific recticauda species complex, that has been described from the western Indian Ocean. The inshore areas where these copepods are found have been poorly surveyed, so the number of species found implies a high diversity.

A new species of Tortanus (Atortus)(Copepoda: Calanoida: Tortanidae) from Rodrigues Island, Mauritius

A new species of the copepod genus Tortanus (Atortus) (Copepoda: Calanoida), T. (A.) insularis, is described from the coastal region of Rodrigues Island, Mauritius, an isolated island in the south-western Indian Ocean. This new species can be assigned to an Indian element, the recticauda species group, in the Indo-West Pacific recticauda species complex. It exhibits the closest relationship to T. (A.) recticauda recorded from the southern Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, rather than the more closely distributed T. (A.) capensis, recorded from off South Africa.

First fossil finds of some Australian Bryozoa (Cheilostomata)

The abundant fossil record of well-preserved Bryozoa in samples from the Tertiary of Victoria and South Australia includes some 'first fossil finds' which are recorded here. Several are of species known from the Recent of the Australian or Indo-West-Pacific regions, but some represent genera with a much wider temporal and geographical range. Of the 11 species illustrated, six are known, or may be inferred, to have inhabited 'sand fauna' environments. Specimens of one species are complete enough to allow its formal description as Chlidoniopsis inopina sp. nov.

Dimorphic brooding zooids in the genus Adeona Lamouroux from Australia (Bryozoa: Cheilostomata)

The genus Adeona is a characteristic and common part of the Australian shelf fauna, extending to the tropical Indo-West Pacific. The genus first appears in the fossil record of the Miocene of south-eastern Australia. Zooid dimorphism has been recognised initially from subtle differences in the external appearance, which have not been described previously. Detailed examination has shown enlarged brooding zooids with marked differences from autozooids in the internal structure of the peristomes and in the occurrence of a primary calcified orifice.

Invertebrate diversity of the unexplored marine western margin of Australia: taxonomy and implications for global biodiversity

However derived, predictions of global marine species diversity rely on existing real data. All methods, whether based on past rates of species descriptions, on expert opinion, on the fraction of undescribed species in samples collected, or on ratios between taxa in the taxonomic hierarchy, suffer the same limitation. Here we show that infaunal macrofauna (crustaceans and polychaetes) of the lower bathyal depth range are underrepresented among available data and documented results from Australia. The crustacean and polychaete fauna (only partially identified) of the bathyal continental margin of Western Australia comprised 805 species, representing a largely novel and endemic fauna. Overall, 94.6% of crustacean species were undescribed, while 72% of polychaete species were new to the Australian fauna, including all tanaidaceans, amphipods, and cumaceans, as well as most isopods. Most species were rare, and the species accumulation rate showed no sign of reaching an asymptote with increasing area sampled. Similar data are likely for the largely unexplored bathyal regions. This leads us to conclude that the numbers upon which extrapolations to larger areas are based are too low to provide confidence. The Southern Australian and Indo-West Pacific deep-sea regions contribute significantly to global species diversity. These regions and bathyal and abyssal habitats generally are extensive, but are so-far poorly sampled. They appear to be dominated by taxonomically poorly worked and species-rich taxa with limited distributions. The combination of high species richness among infaunal taxa-compared to better known taxa with larger individuals, higher endemism than presently acknowledged because of the presence of cryptic species, the low proportion of described species in these taxa, and the vast extent of unexplored bathyal and abyssal environments-will lead to further accumulation of new species as more and more deep sea regions are explored. It remains to be tested whether ratios of 10 or more undescribed to described species, found in this study for the dominant taxa and for the deep Southern Ocean and the Indo-West Pacific, are replicable in other areas. Our data and similar figures from other remote regions, and the lack of faunal overlap, suggest that Appeltans et al.'s (Current Biology 22:1-14, 2012) estimate that between one-third and two-thirds of the world's marine fauna is undescribed is low, and that Mora et al.'s (PLoS Biol 9(8):e1001127. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127, 2011) of 91% is more probable. We conclude that estimates of global species, however made, are based on limited data. © 2014 Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Alien shrimps in evidence: new records of the genus Athanas Leach, 1814 on the coast of So Paulo, southern Brazil (Caridea: Alpheidae)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Alien shrimps in evidence: new records of the genus Athanas Leach, 1814 on the coast of So Paulo, southern Brazil (Caridea: Alpheidae)

The occurrence of two alien alpheid shrimps of the genus Athanas Leach, 1814 [in Leach 1813-1814], the Indo-West Pacific A. dimorphus Ortmann, 1894 and the Eastern Atlantic A. nitescens (Leach, 1813 [in Leach 1813-1814]), on the coast of the state of So Paulo, Brazil, is reported. The presence of A. dimorphus extends the range of this species in the western Atlantic farther to the south in Brazil, whereas A. nitescens is reported for the first time in the western Atlantic, representing the second alien alpheid species on this side of the Atlantic and the twenty-first decapod crustacean introduced in Brazil. We provide morphological accounts of the material examined and illustrate the most important diagnostic characters of both species. An overview of the possible mechanisms of their introduction on the coast of So Paulo is also provided.

Late Oligocene rapid transformations in the South China Sea

Lithobiostratigraphic data indicate that the double reflectors on the seismic profile through Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1148 represent two unconformities that coincide, respectively, with the lower/upper Oligocene boundary at ~488 mcd, and Oligocene-Miocene boundary at 460 mcd. Two other unconformities, at ~478 and 472 mcd, respectively, were also identified within the upper Oligocene section. Together they erased a sediment record of about 3 Ma from this locality in a period of very active seafloor spreading. The existence of 32.8 Ma marine sediment at the terminated depth (850 mcd) indicates that the initial breakup of the South China Sea (SCS) was probably during 34-33 Ma, close to the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. High sedimentation rates of 60-115 m/my from the much expanded, N350 m lower Oligocene section resulted from rifting and rapid subsidence between 33 and 29 Ma. The mid-Oligocene unconformity at ~28.5 Ma, which also occurred in many parts of the Indo-West Pacific region, was probably related to a significant uplift of the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau to the west and the initial collision between Indonesia and Australia in the south. A narrowed Indonesian seaway may have accounted for the late Oligocene warming and chalk deposition in the northern South China Sea including the Site 1148 locality. The unconformities and slumps near the Oligocene-Miocene boundary indicate a very unstable tectonic regime, probably corresponding to changes in the rotation of different land blocks and the seafloor spreading ridge from nearly E-W to NE-SW, as recognized earlier at magnetic Anomaly 7. This 25 Ma event also saw the first New Guinea terrane docking at the northern Australian craton. The low sedimentation rate of ~15 m/my in the early to middle Miocene may correspond to another period of rapid seafloor spreading and rapid widespread subsidence that effectively caused sediment source areas to retreat with a rapidly rising sea level. The isostatic nature of these late Oligocene unconformities and slumps with several major collision-uplift events indicate that the rapid changes in the early evolutionary history of the South China Sea were mainly responding to regional tectonic reconfiguration including the uplift-driven southeast extrusion of the Indochina subcontinent.

Molecular phylogeny analysis of fiddler crabs: test of the hypothesis of increasing behavioral complexity in evolution.

The current phylogenetic hypothesis for the evolution and biogeography of fiddler crabs relies on the assumption that complex behavioral traits are assumed to also be evolutionary derived. Indo-west Pacific fiddler crabs have simpler reproductive social behavior and are more marine and were thought to be ancestral to the more behaviorally complex and more terrestrial American species. It was also hypothesized that the evolution of more complex social and reproductive behavior was associated with the colonization of the higher intertidal zones. Our phylogenetic analysis, based upon a set of independent molecular characters, however, demonstrates how widely entrenched ideas about evolution and biogeography led to a reasonable, but apparently incorrect, conclusion about the evolutionary trends within this pantropical group of crustaceans. Species bearing the set of "derived traits" are phylogenetically ancestral, suggesting an alternative evolutionary scenario: the evolution of reproductive behavioral complexity in fiddler crabs may have arisen multiple times during their evolution. The evolution of behavioral complexity may have arisen by coopting of a series of other adaptations for high intertidal living and antipredator escape. A calibration of rates of molecular evolution from populations on either side of the Isthmus of Panama suggest a sequence divergence rate for 16S rRNA of 0.9% per million years. The divergence between the ancestral clade and derived forms is estimated to be approximately 22 million years ago, whereas the divergence between the American and Indo-west Pacific is estimated to be approximately 17 million years ago.

Revision of Telotrema Ozaki, 1933 (Digenea : Gyliauchenidae Fukui, 1929), including the description of a new species from an acanthurid fish from the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia

We describe one new species of Telotrema Ozaki, 1933 from the intestine of an acanthurid fish of the Great Barrier Reef. Telotrema brevicaudatum n. sp. is described from 2 mature specimens from the yellowfin surgeonfish, Acanthurus xanthopterus Valenciennes, 1835 ( Acanthuridae), from waters off Lizard Island, Queensland, Australia. This species is distinguished from the type-species, Telotrema caudatum Ozaki, 1933, by the smaller excretory papilla, the massive pars prostatica, the unipartite, globular seminal vesicle, and the intertesticular position of the ovary. The proposal of a new species of Telotrema necessitates re-examination of the generic diagnosis, and the genus is here redefined in light of the morphology of T. brevicaudatum. Telotrema is distinguished from Gyliauchen Nicoll, 1915 by the possession of a ventral sucker which is larger than the pharynx, a straight or sigmoid oesophagus, an extensive and dense vitellarium, and a distinct excretory papilla. We here recognise 3 species and distinguish them in a key. The biogeographical range for species of Telotrema now includes acanthurid and pomacentrid fishes of the western Pacific Ocean.

Basal chromodorid sperm ultrastructure (Nudibranchia, Gastropoda, Mollusca)

The relationship between three genera considered basal in the Chromodorididae (Cadlina, Tyrinna, Cadlinella) has not yet been resolved by traditional morphological means. Here we examined the sperm ultrastructure of Tyrinna nobilis, Tyrinna evelinae, Cadlina flavomaculata and Cadlina cf. nigrobranchiata, with the expectation of finding phylogenetically informative characters. No Tyrinna or Cadlina species showed sperm similarities to Cadlinella. Both Cadlina species and Tyrinna nobilis (but not T. evelinae) exhibited coarse striations in the acrosomal pedestal. The putative fibers that occurred between the coarse striations of the pedestal are condensed into a layer in Cadlina and Tyrinna, but not in other species that also have coarse striations (Gymnodoris), and may constitute evidence for a close relationship. Tyrinna evelinae possessed fine acrosomal striations, which was shared with other Chromodorididae, Actinocyclidae and the cryptobranchs Rostanga and Aphelodoris. We also examined the sperm ultrastructure of 'Chromodoris' ambiguus, an animal which has shown molecular affinities to species of Cadlina, and not Chromodoris. The sperm of 'C'.' ambiguus did not exhibit the typical Cadlina characteristics, but also showed important differences to other investigated Chromodoris species.

Alpheid shrimps (Crustacea: Decapoda: Alpheidae) of Vietnam

The present paper deals with a collection of alpheid shrimps from Vietnam received by Mr R. Serene, formerly Director the Institute of Oceanography, Nhatrang (Vietnam). Though small in size the material has proved to be fairly rich. It contains 23 species belonging to the genera Alpheopsis Coutiere, Synalpheus Bate and Alpheus Fabricius, the last named genus accounting for all but three species. Two new species, one each belonging to Alpheopsis and Alpheus, have been briefly described by the author (Tiwari, 1962) in an earlier paper. The remaining species are already known and some of them have an extensive distribution in the Indo-West-Pacific.

Comparative phylogeography of the western Indian Ocean reef fauna

Assessing patterns of connectivity at the community and population levels is relevant to marine resource management and conservation. The present study reviews this issue with a focus on the western Indian Ocean (WIO) biogeographic province. This part of the Indian Ocean holds more species than expected from current models of global reef fish species richness. In this study, checklists of reef fish species were examined to determine levels of endemism in each of 10 biogeographic provinces of the Indian Ocean. Results showed that the number of endemic species was higher in the WIO than in any other region of the Indian Ocean. Endemic species from the WIO on the average had a larger body size than elsewhere in the tropical Indian Ocean. This suggests an effect of peripheral speciation, as previously documented in the Hawaiian reef fish fauna, relative to other sites in the tropical western Pacific. To explore evolutionary dynamics of species across biogeographic provinces and infer mechanisms of speciation, we present and compare the results of phylogeographic surveys based on compilations of published and unpublished mitochondrial DNA sequences for 19 Indo-Pacific reef-associated fishes (rainbow grouper Cephalopholis argus, scrawled butterflyfish Chaetodon meyeri, bluespot mullet Crenimugil sp. A, humbug damselfish Dascyllus abudafur/Dascyllus aruanus, areolate grouper Epinephelus areolatus, blacktip grouper Epinephelus fasciatus, honeycomb grouper Epinephelus merra, bluespotted cornetfish Fistularia commersonii, cleaner wrasse Labroides sp. 1, longface emperor Lethrinus sp. A, bluestripe snapper Lutjanus kasmira, unicornfishes Naso brevirosris, Naso unicornis and Naso vlamingii, blue-spotted maskray Neotrygon kuhlii, largescale mullet Planiliza macrolepis, common parrotfish Scarus psicattus, crescent grunter Terapon jarbua, whitetip reef shark Triaenodon obesus) and three coastal Indo-West Pacific invertebrates (blue seastar Linckia laevigata, spiny lobster Panulirus homarus, small giant clam Tridacna maxima). Heterogeneous and often unbalanced sampling design, paucity of data in a number of cases, and among-species discrepancy in phylogeographic structure precluded any generalization regarding phylogeographic patterns. Nevertheless, the WIO might have been a source of haplotypes in some cases and it also harboured an endemic clade in at least one case. The present survey also highlighted likely cryptic species. This may eventually affect the accuracy of the current checklists of species, which form the basis of some of the recent advances in Indo-West Pacific marine ecology and biogeography.