Reef building Mediterranean vermetid gastropods: disentangling the Dendropoma petraeum species complex

Abstract

A previous molecular study has revealed that the Mediterranean reef building vermetid gastropod Dendropoma petraeum conforms a complex of at least four cryptic species with non-overlapping distribution areas. Once detected specific genetic differences, ‘a posteriori’ searching for phenotypic characters has been undertaken to differentiate cryptic species and to formally describe and name them. The name D. petraeum (Monterosato, 1884) should be restricted to the species of this complex distributed around the Central Mediterranean (type locality in Sicily). In the present work we redescribe this taxon under the older valid name D. cristatum (Biondi, 1857), and we describe the new species of this complex distributed in the western Mediterranean. These descriptions are based on a comparative study focusing on the protoconch, teleoconch, external and internal anatomy. Both species can be only distinguished on the basis of non-easily visible anatomical features. Further, protoconchs differ in size and sculpture. On the other hand, some differences between both species are evidenced in features of the intracapsular larval development: the number and size of the egg capsules brooded per female at the same time, the number of egg/embryos per egg capsule, egg diameter and type of intracapsular nutrition.

Massive bioconstructions built by Neopycnodonte cochlear (Mollusca, Bivalvia) in a mesophotic environment in the central Mediterranean Sea

“…Most such studies have stressed the role of scleractinians as main reef-building organisms [5][6][7] , highlighting the paramount ecological role of such calcifying bioconstructors 36 . At Mediterranean scale, literature data on marine gastropod bioconstructions have mainly focused on shallow waters, where large vermetid reefs are known from the Late Miocene and from off Israel [37][38][39] . In contrast, very limited information is available about biogenic formations built by bivalves on circalittoral and bathyal seabeds because most of the literature mainly reported distributional data rather than providing a fine-scale description of such formations.…”

A new species of Novastoa Finlay, 1926 (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Vermetidae) from coral reefs of the Pacific Ocean

“…In the few cases in which population-level molecular data are available for vermetids (i.e., Faucci 2007;Calvo et al 2009Calvo et al , 2015Golding et al 2014;Templado et al 2016), a high level of cryptic diversity has been documented even at much smaller scales. The best-studied example is a Mediterranean reefforming vermetid, usually called Dendropoma petraeum (Monterosato, 1884), which is also one of the most studied vermetids due to its intrinsic potential use as sea level indicator (see Schiaparelli et al 2006 and references therein).…”

“…The best-studied example is a Mediterranean reefforming vermetid, usually called Dendropoma petraeum (Monterosato, 1884), which is also one of the most studied vermetids due to its intrinsic potential use as sea level indicator (see Schiaparelli et al 2006 and references therein). The nominal species was recently shown (Calvo et al 2009;Templado et al 2016) to be a complex of four species.…”

Settlement performance of the Mediterranean reef-builders Dendropoma cristatum (Biondi 1859) in response to natural bacterial films

“…Intertidal vermetid bioconstructions are an example of these reefs and are made by gregarious gastropods and crustose coralline algae (Chemello, 2009;Laborel, 1987;Templado et al, 2016). Such habitats, typical of subtropical and warm temperate rocky coasts around the world (Milazzo et al, 2016), are mostly built-up by the gastropods Dendropoma spp.…”

“…within the Mediterranean Sea (Golding et al, 2014;Safriel, 1966). Recent phylogenetic analyses revealed the existence of at least four cryptic species responsible for the creation of these bioconstructions, with a well-defined distribution in a west-east direction (Calvo et al, 2009(Calvo et al, , 2015Templado et al, 2016). According to Golding et al (2014), the four Mediterranean species are ecologically equivalent and show few morphological differences at the adult stage, but distinct developmental characters (e.g., egg capsule number, number of eggs per capsule) (Calvo et al, 1998).…”