No abstract

Zanol, J., Halanych, K.M., Fauchald, K. (2014). Reconciling taxonomy and phylogeny in the bristleworm family Eunicidae (polychaete, Annelida). -Zoologica Scripta, 43, 79-100. Eunicid annelids inhabit diverse marine habitats worldwide, have ecological and economic importance and have been pictured in the news as giant predator worms. They compose a traditional stable taxon recently supported as monophyletic but characterized by plesiomorphies. Most genera within the family have been recovered as paraphyletic in previous studies. We present a phylogenetic hypothesis for eunicid based on molecular (COI, 16S rDNA, 18S rDNA) and morphological data (213 characters), including an explicit attempt to account for serial homology. Eunicidae as well as monophyletic genera Marphysa sensu stricto and Lysidice is redefined based on synapomorphies. Nematonereis is synonymized to Lysidice. Leodice and Nicidion are resurrected to name monophyletic groups including species previously included in Eunice and Marphysa sensu lato. Traditional diagnostic characters such as the absence/presence of peristomial cirri, lateral antennae and branchiae are homoplasies and not informative at the generic level. Different coding of traditional characters (i.e. articulation of prostomial appendages) and novel characters of prostomial features and regionalization of the body support the monophyly of the family and genera level clades. Thus, the phylogenetic hypothesis presented here and the evolution of characters provided background information for taxonomic changes yielding evolutionary meaningful classification and diagnoses for the family and genera.

Resumo: O caramujo africano invasor Achatina fulica foi introduzido no Brasil a partir de Estados do Sul e Sudeste em pelo menos três ocasiões. Atualmente sua distribuição já abrange 24 dos 26 estados e o Distrito Federal. Populações densas dessa espécie vêm causando incômodos à populações humanas, danos à jardins e pequenas plantações, além de atuarem como transmissoras de duas zoonoses (angiostrongilíase abdominal e meningoencefalite eosinofílica) e outras parasitoses de interesse veterinário. No presente estudo, apresentamos novas ocorrências de A. fulica no Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) assim como dados sobre as larvas de nematódeos de interesse médico e veterinário encontradas em exemplares dessa espécie coletados neste estado. A. fulica está presente em 26 municípios adicionais em relação aos dados obtidos em 2006, ano do último levantamento, representando um aumento de 50% no número de municípios infestados. Apenas nove dos 92 municípios do estado ainda não registram a presença dessa espécie. Larvas dos nematódeos Aelurostrongylus abstrusus, Rhabditis sp. e Strongyluris-like, todas com importância veterinária, foram encontradas em exemplares de A. fulica de onze municípios. A rápida dispersão de A. fulica evidencia a necessidade de planos de manejo contínuos e eficientes em todo o país visando o controle efetivo dessa invasão. A erradicação de A. fulica é pouco provável devido ao nível atual de infestação. Palavras-chave: Achatina fulica, Gastropoda, espécie invasora, distribuição, saúde pública.

The genus Marphysa is widely collected for bait by recreational fishermen in Australia, and yet the number of species remains unresolved. A new species is described together with additional information on a previously described species. This study reveals that while species of Marphysa superficially resemble one another, detailed studies on the distribution of different types of chaetae along the body, together with molecular studies, uncover species which may co-occur. Correct identification is critical for management of these largely intertidal species. This study also highlights the increasing awareness of the presence of pseudo-cryptic species in polychaetes.

Species of Eunice are distributed worldwide, inhabiting soft and hard marine bottoms. Some of these species play significant roles in coral reef communities and others are commercially important. Eunice is the largest and most poorly defined genus in Eunicidae. It has traditionally been subdivided in taxonomically informal groups based on the colour and dentition of subacicular hooks, and branchial distribution. The monophyly of Eunice and of its informal subgroups is tested here using cladistic analyses of 24 ingroup species based on morphological data. In the phylogenetic hypothesis resulting from the present analyses Eunice and its subgroups are paraphyletic; the genus may be divided in at least two monophyletic groups, Eunice s.s. and Leodice, but several species do not fall inside these two groups. Most of the traditional characters used in the taxonomy of Eunice are homoplasies; however, characters used for the first time in this study, such as certain jaw characters and characters derived from a close examination of chaetal variation along the body, are promising sources of phylogenetic signal. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 150, 413–434.

In this study, we analyze the current state of knowledge on extant Eunicida systematics, morphology, feeding, life history, habitat, ecology, distribution patterns, local diversity and exploitation. Eunicida is an order of Errantia annelids characterized by the presence of ventral mandibles and dorsal maxillae in a ventral muscularized pharynx. The origin of Eunicida dates back to the late Cambrian, and the peaks of jaw morphology diversity and number of families are in the Ordovician. Species richness is heterogeneous among the seven recent families, with more than half of the valid species belonging to the Eunicidae + Onuphidae clade, one of the latest clades to diverge. Eunicidans inhabit soft and hard substrates from intertidal to deep waters in all oceans. The few freshwater species are restricted to Histriobdellidae, a family exclusively commensal/parasite of crustaceans. The reproductive biology, development and ecology of most families are poorly known and the information available suggests low dispersal ability. However, all families have records of widely distributed species. Scrutiny of these wide distributions has often revealed the presence of exotic species or more than one species. The exploration of the deep-sea and of new habitats has led to recent descriptions of new species. Furthermore, the revision of type specimens, the examination of new morphological features and the use of molecular data have revealed hidden biodiversity under unjustified synonyms, poor understanding of morphological features and incomplete descriptions. Molecular studies are still very few or nonexistent for the families Histriobdellidae, Hartmaniellidae, Lumbrineridae and Oenonidae. The integration of new methodologies for morphological and molecular study, along with information on biological and ecological traits appears to be the path to improve the knowledge on the diversity of Eunicida.

The common bait wormMarphysasanguinea(Montagu, 1813), originally described from the south coast of England, is the type species of the genus. This species has been widely reported from all around the world and has been considered as cosmopolitan until recently. This is partly because the original description was very brief and poorly illustrated, and also because all species superficially look similar. In order to clarify the situation,M.sanguineawas redescribed and a neotype was designated by Hutchings and Karageorgpoulos in 2003. Recently, specimens from Cornwall, close to the type locality, were sampled, examined morphologically, and used to obtain COI gene sequences for this species. Molecular results permitted us to confirm the identity and presence ofM.sanguineaalong the French coasts and to highlight the presence of inaccurate sequences of this species on GenBank. Use of this “false” cosmopolitan species at a worldwide scale by many biologists is also discussed in this paper.

During a visit to polychaete-rearing facilities in the vicinity of Bay of Cá diz (SW Iberian Peninsula, Atlantic Ocean), we sampled two populations of Marphysa (Annelida, Eunicidae) originally occurring at nearby intertidal soft bottoms, one being more than twice as long as the other at the same age. We analysed them using partial sequences of two mitochondrial genes, 16S rDNA and Cytochrome Oxidase I, and classical morphological observations. Our molecular results confirmed that the two populations corresponded to two different species, with PTP species delimitation values ranging from 0.973 (long-bodied species) to 0.999 (short-bodied species). Morphologically, the short-bodied species resembles the recently redescribed M. sanguinea (Montagu, 1813), but differs mainly in having some parapodia with two subacicular hooks (one bidentate and one unidentate) and three types of pectinate chaetae, Two isodont present all along the body, and one particularly large anodont asymmetric appearing only from mid-posterior parapodia. The long-bodied species resembles Marphysa aegypti Elgetany, El-Ghobashy, Ghoneim and Struck, 2018 both in size and in having very robust, unidentate subacicular hooks (single in most parapodia, two-both similar in size and form-in some posterior parapodia), but differs, among other features, in the maxillary formula, the number of acicula per parapodia and the number and shape of pectinate chaetae. Accordingly, we are here fully illustrating and formally describing the two Iberian populations as Marphysa gaditana sp. nov. (short-bodied) and Marphysa chirigota sp. nov. (long-bodied) and we are emending the description of M. aegypti based on our revision of the type material. Also, we discuss on the distribution of the species of the sanguinea-group and on the relevancy of taxonomically robust studies when dealing with species of commercial interest having the potential of being globally spread through human activities, as well as on the misunderstandings caused by the incorrect use of the "cosmopolitan species" concept.