Munidopsis species (Crustacea: Decapoda: Munidopsidae) from carcass falls in Weijia Guyot, West Pacific, with recognition of a new species based on integrative taxonomy

Abstract

Several squat lobster specimens of the genus Munidopsis were collected from an artificially placed carcass fall (cow bones) on Weijia Guyot in the western Pacific Ocean. Based on morphological comparisons and molecular analysis, three specimens were confirmed as juveniles of M. albatrossae Pequegnat & Pequegnat, 1973, which represents the first record of this species in the western Pacific. The other specimens collected are newly described as Munidopsis spinifrons sp. nov., which is distinguished from the closely related species in having a spinose rostrum and basal lateral eyespine on the eyestalk. The M. albatrossae from Weijia Guyot exhibited very low genetic distances when compared with a conspecific sample from Monterey Bay, USA, and the closely related species M. aries (A. Milne Edwards, 1880) from the northeastern Atlantic. A phylogenetic tree based on the mtCOI gene shows M. spinifrons sp. nov. as sister to M. vrijenhoeki Jones & Macpherson, 2007 and M. nitida (A. Milne Edwards, 1880), although M. vrijenhoeki presents a complex relationship with other species in the clade. The systematic status of the new species and the closely related species are discussed.

Microbial epibiotic community of the deep-sea galatheid squat lobster Munidopsis alvisca

“…However, there are no studies describing the composition and diversity of the epibiota, or investigating the potential role of the epibionts in host ecology, even though Munidopsis spp. are considered as “classical” and ubiquitous deep-sea fauna 19 – 21 .…”

Munidopsis geyeri and M. exuta (Crustacea: Munidopsidae): A study of two deep-sea, amphi-Atlantic species that co-occur in the southern Gulf of Mexico

“…The genetic distance between morphologically well-differentiated species, such as M. geyeri and M. livida, is relatively high, 10.5 to 11% ( Using the K2P substitution model, we recorded a similar intraspecific average of genetic distances with the p-distances analysis. Interspecific divergences (5.4% + 4.6; Table 3) and intergeneric divergence between species of Munidopsis and Shinkaia crosnieri (21.8% + 1.4; Table 3) were not dissimilar to groups of Munidopsis of the west Pacific (2.2% + 1.19; Table 5; Dong et al 2019). The interspecific average for the Munidopsis species is lower than the values recorded for other decapods (17%; Table 5) but are within the ranges recorded (from 4.3 to 24.7%; Table 5).…”

“…They exhibit scavenging and opportunistic feeding behaviors (e.g. M. albatrossae Pequegnat & Pequegnat, 1973;Dong et al 2019), usually occurring at bathyal and abyssal depths in sites that are organically enriched (Baba 2005;Chevaldonne & Olu 1996;Jones & Macpherson 2007;Kemp et al 2006). Some species of Munidopsis are referred to as colonists (as defined by Carney 1994) of seeps and hydrothermal vents (e.g.…”

Cosmopolitan abyssal lineages? A systematic study of East Pacific deep-sea squat lobsters (Decapoda: Galatheoidea: Munidopsidae)

“…Phylogenetic analyses were performed using two different data sets: (1) concatenated data of 152 taxa and (2) COI P. C. Rodríguez-Flores et al Invertebrate Systematics data alone that included a larger number of terminals available in public databases, with 212 sequences of 82 named species. We first retrieved sequences from previous publications from the NCBI database (Ahyong et al 2011;Bracken-Grissom et al 2013;Rodríguez-Flores et al 2018, 2019a, 2022a, 2022bDong et al 2019. In the first dataset (1), we included wide taxonomic sampling across Galatheoidea (Galatheidae, Munididae, Munidopsidae and Porcellanidae), providing a phylogenetic framework to test the systematic position of the East Pacific species.…”

“…Additional species are added nearly every year (e.g. Rodríguez-Flores et al 2018, 2022aDong et al 2019Marin 2020), suggesting that a great deal of diversity remains to be discovered. Munidopsids occur in deep-sea benthos across a latitudinal gradient in both hemispheres (Baba 2005) but few records are attributed to Antarctic waters (García Raso et al 2008).…”