Morphological description and population structure of an ophiuroid species from cobalt-rich crust seamounts in the Northwest Pacific: Implications for marine protection under deep-sea mining

Review of Ophioplinthaca Verrill, 1899 (Echinodermata, Ophiuroidea, Ophiacanthidae), description of new species in Ophioplinthaca and Ophiophthalmus, and new records from the Northwest Pacific and the South China Sea

“…lithosora, which was collected from a South China Sea seamount. The present study and recent studies done in the Northwest Pacific region suggest higher Ophioplinthaca species diversity from deep seamounts than previously known, and it may increase with future expeditions to this area (Chen et al 2021a;Na et al 2021).…”

“…L. Clark , 1939Matsumoto 1917;A. H. Clark 1949;Mortensen 1933;John and A. M. Clark 1954;Cherbonnier and Sibuet 1972;Guille 1981;O'Hara and Stöhr 2006;Chen et al 2021a, b;Na et al 2021) and by molecular analysis.…”

“…A total of 32 accepted species are included in the genus Ophioplinthaca , and most of them have been recorded from the Indo-Pacific Ocean ( OBIS 2021 ; Stöhr et al 2021 ). Recent studies suggested Ophioplinthaca species were dominant megafauna on seamounts from the Northwest Pacific region ( Cho and Shank 2010 ; Chen et al 2021a ; Na et al 2021 ). However, species diversity and geography of Ophioplinthaca species are still not fully understood due to limited collecting efforts in this area ( Cho and Shank 2010 ; Yesson et al 2011 ; Chen et al 2021a , b ; Na et al 2021 ).…”

“…Recent studies suggested Ophioplinthaca species were dominant megafauna on seamounts from the Northwest Pacific region ( Cho and Shank 2010 ; Chen et al 2021a ; Na et al 2021 ). However, species diversity and geography of Ophioplinthaca species are still not fully understood due to limited collecting efforts in this area ( Cho and Shank 2010 ; Yesson et al 2011 ; Chen et al 2021a , b ; Na et al 2021 ). Previous morphological studies reported that Ophioplinthaca species were difficult to separate due to complex intraspecific morphological variation ( O’Hara and Stöhr 2006 ; Chen et al 2021a , b ; Na et al 2021 ).…”

New species, redescriptions and new records of deep-sea brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) from the South China Sea, an integrated morphological and molecular approach

“…We analyzed the sequences from 16 specimens of deep-sea ophiuroids for 16S and 23 specimens of deep-sea ophiuroids for COI, compared to 64 published sequences (COI and 16S) from various families European Journal of Taxonomy 810: 1-95 (2022) Table 2 (continued on next two pages). List of species used in this study to reconstruct molecular phylogeny trees (sources: Ward et al 2008;Corstorphine 2010;Cho & Shank 2010;Okanishi et al 2011aOkanishi et al , 2018O'Hara et al 2013O'Hara et al , 2014O'Hara et al , 2016Okanishi & Fujita 2013;Gallego et al 2014;Summers & Rouse 2014;Hunter et al 2016;Galaska et al 2019;Na et al 2022) (Table 2). We constructed six Maximum Likelihood (ML) phylogenetic trees from COI, representing the families Euryalidae, Gorgonocephalidae, Asteronychidae, Ophiacanthidae, Ophiotomidae, Ophiactidae and Ophiomusaidae and two ML phylogenetic trees from 16S, one for each of the families Asteronychidae and Ophiacanthidae.…”