Abstract
Thouarella Gray, 1870, is one of the most speciose genera among primnoid gorgonians. It has a worldwide distribution that includes Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions. Based on a combination of detailed morphological studies and analyses using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers, we describe and illustrate three new species of bottlebrush-shaped Thouarella from the Weddell Sea, Southern Ocean: T. islai sp. nov., T. weddellensis sp. nov. and T. polarsterni sp. nov. For the morphological description, we used macro-structural characters, such as branching pattern and polyp arrangement, along with axis and micro-structural characters, such as architecture and shapes of scales and their arrangement in polyps. Additionally, we amplified two mitochondrial (mtMutS and Cox1) and one nuclear loci (28S rDNA) obtaining optimal topologies under a Bayesian approach. Resulting molecular phylogenies corroborated the status of the new taxa and elucidated their relationships to closely related species. With the three new species here described, the global diversity of Thouarella has increased to 38 species, 12 of which are endemic to Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters. The high number of species from higher latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, the high grade of endemism in this biogeographic area and recent phylogenetic analyses support the idea that the Southern Ocean was likely a centre for Thouarella species radiation.
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Abbreviations
- BECA:
-
Biodiversidad y Ecología Acuática
- H:
-
Height
- H:W:
-
Ratio height/width of a scale
- IL:
-
Inner lateral scales
- L:
-
Length of a polyp
- M:
-
Marginal scale
- MZB:
-
Museu de Zoologia de Barcelona
- O:
-
Opercular scale
- OL:
-
Outer lateral scales
- SEM:
-
Scanning electron microscopy
- SM:
-
Submarginal
- W:
-
Width
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable assistance of the officers and crew of the RV Polarstern and many colleagues on board during the ANT XII/3 (1995), ANT XXIII/8 (2007), ANT XXIV/2 (2008), ANT XXVII-3 (2011), ANT-XXIX (2014) and ANT-XXXI/2 (2016) cruises. We extend our thanks to the cruise leaders and steering committee of the cruises especially Wolf E. Arntz and Julian Gutt (Alfred Wegener Institut, Bremerhaven), who kindly facilitated the work onboard, and for the opportunity to collaborate in these Antarctic programs. Special thanks to Josep Maria Gili, Rebeca Zapata-Guardiola, and Stefano Ambroso for helping in the collection of octocoral specimens during Polarstern cruises. We also acknowledge José Garrido for his help with the DNA extraction and amplification and Norwegian Polar Institute for making the Quantarctica package available. Finally, we thank the editor Bert W. Hoeksema and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions that improved the final version of this manuscript.
Funding
This research is supported by the project CTM2017–83920-P (DIVERSICORAL), Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. Different funds for the participation on these Polarstern cruises were provided by the Spanish CICYT projects—CLIMANT—POL2006–06399/CGL (ANT XXIII/8). M.N.F. acknowledges partial support from CONICYT-PCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2017–21,170,438, and Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH) grant number DG_04_19. D.G.U. acknowledges partial support from Nucleo Milenio INVASAL funded through Chile’s Iniciativa Científica Milenio at Ministerio de Economía, Fomento & Turismo, Chile.
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Additional data, including primers used to amplify the regions of Cox1, mtMutS and 28S, GenBank accession numbers of the primnoids specimens used in the molecular analysis and additional phylogenetic results are in the Supplementary Files.
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M.N.F., P.L.G. and D.G.U. conceived and designed the study. M.N.F. performed scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and conducted morphological examinations and phylogenetic analysis. M.N.F. wrote the first draft of the manuscript that was improved in subsequent revisions by P.L.G and D.G.U. All authors gave final approval for publication.
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Núñez-Flores, M., Gomez-Uchida, D. & López-González, P.J. Molecular and morphological data reveal three new species of Thouarella Gray, 1870 (Anthozoa: Octocorallia: Primnoidae) from the Southern Ocean. Mar. Biodivers. 50, 30 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-020-01053-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-020-01053-z