Occurrence of Octopus insularis Leite and Haimovici, 2008 in the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic and implications of species misidentification to octopus fisheries management

Peer Review #2 of "An integrative taxonomic approach reveals Octopus insularis as the dominant species in the Veracruz Reef System (southwestern Gulf of Mexico) (v0.1)"

“…Moreover, Amor et al (2016) investigated the morphological relationships among seven phylogenetic clades of the "Octopus vulgaris species complex" and found several significant morphological differences among sampling localities of conspecifics, considering them to represent population-level differences. Specimens analyzed in the present study are close to the maximum dimensions reported in Brazil: 2 kg TW, 700 mm TL and 190 mm ML (Lima et al, 2017). Colour patterns and skin texture observed in our specimens exactly match what has been previously reported for O. insularis.…”

“…Most species in this complex have yet to be distinguished using morphological and meristic characters (Amor et al, 2016). A recent assessment in different coastal and oceanic regions along the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic and Tropical Southwestern Atlantic revealed that several commercially-fished octopus specimens previously identified as O. vulgaris were being mislabeled and were in fact either O. maya or O. insularis, thus proving the common misidentification that often occurs among the exploited octopus species in the area (Lima et al, 2017). Proper identification of organisms is necessary to monitor biodiversity at any level (Vecchione & Colette, 1996) and it is particularly important in the case of commerciallyexploited species because it allows the effective management of their stocks by considering specific biological features and thus defining particular conservation proposals to prevent overexploitation (Ward, 2000;Lima et al, 2017).…”

Genome-wide sequencing uncovers cryptic diversity and mito-nuclear discordance in theOctopus vulgarisspecies complex

“…We analysed genome-wide RAD loci to investigate the phylogenetic and specieslevel relationships within the highest value fisheries target species of octopus in the world. Our study provides evidence for the existence of three cryptic species within the 37 , which also appears to be true for O. insularis from the Caribbean and eastern North Brazil 38,39 . Both of the above examples suggest these taxa can maintain gene-flow despite connectivity requiring trans-tropical dispersal.…”

Taxonomy and phylogeny of mud owls (Annelida: Sternaspidae), including a new synonymy and new records from the Southern Ocean, North East Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean: challenges in morphological delimitation

“…Species misidentification is anecdotally widespread within these databases (Morton 2018), with specific cases of marine invertebrate misidentification often reported (e.g. Lima et al 2017;Morton 2018). In this case, the Chilean sequence likely belongs to S. chilensis Díaz-Díaz & Rozbaczylo, 2017, described from some of the same source material as the sequence (Maturana et al 2011;Díaz-Díaz and Rozbaczylo 2017); however, the relatively low intra-clade variation between specimens from the Bering Sea and the Bay of Bengal is interesting as it suggests gene flow over a massive geographic area, as well as sandwiching South-East Asia, an apparent hotspot for sternaspid diversity based on current taxonomy (Fig.…”