Revision and catalogue of worldwide staghorn corals Acropora and Isopora (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) in the Museum of Tropical Queensland

Abstract

Species of the reef-building coral genera Acropora and Isopora are reviewed and their synonymies, descriptions and distributions updated, following previous revisions in 1999 (Acropora) and 2007 (Isopora). A catalogue is given of all specimens of these genera in the Worldwide Staghorn Coral Collection in the Museum of Tropical Queensland, Australia, providing geographic records from present-day Indo-Pacific and Atlantic species. The collection includes primary types of 61 species, numerous secondary types, topotypes and fragments of types donated by other museums and specimens represented in more than 59 publications during a period of intense coral research in late 20th and early 21st centuries. One new species, Acropora arafura, is described from Northern Australia and species newly added to the collection since 1999 are included.

Genomic Data Reveal Diverse Biological Characteristics of Scleractinian Corals and Promote Effective Coral Reef Conservation

“…Forty are from 9 of the 37 families of stony corals (Scleractinia) ( Table 1 ); however, most of these genomes are from the family Acroporidae (22 species) and the genus Acropora (17 species). The genus Acropora (family Acroporidae) is the iconic coral taxon in extant coral reefs globally and the most diverse scleractinian genus, with around 140 accepted species ( Wallace 1999; WoRMS Editorial Board 2023 ). The high growth rate of Acropora corals contributes significantly to reef growth, providing habitats for diverse marine organisms, island formation, coastal protection, and fisheries ( Shinn 1966 ; Bruckner 2002 ); thus Acropora corals are important not only for the maintenance of biodiversity but also for human life in regions hosting coral reefs.…”

Biodiversity and biogeography of zooxanthellate corals in Australasia revisited based on new data from the Kimberley

“…Dr Zoe Richards identified all corals based on morphological features using a range of taxonomic sources (including Wells 1956;Veron et al 1971;Veron and Wallace 1984;Veron and Marsh 1988;Wallace 1999;Veron 2000;Dai and Horng 2009;Benzoni et al 2010;Wallace, Done and Muir 2012). Corals were classified to align with the World List of Scleractinia as of June 2022 (http://www.marinespecies.org/scleractinia), which reflects the most up-to-date nomenclatural system based on published morphological and molecular research (Benzoni et al 2010;Budd et al 2012;Gittenberger et al 2011;Benzoni et al 2012;Huang et al 2014a,b;Kitano et al 2014;Schmidt-Roach et al 2014;Juszkiewicz et al 2022).…”

“…The known distributions of all species in this study was determined according to the Corals of the World online database (Veron et al 2016), or Veron (2000) for taxa not available online. Other reference material for regional distribution records includes Veron (1993); Griffith (1997); McKinney (2009); Richards and Rosser (2012); Wallace et al (2012); Richards et al (2014Richards et al ( , 2015; and Muir et al (2015).…”

Spatial variation in spawning timing for multi-species Acropora assemblages in the Red Sea

“…Acropora identification is challenging due to a combination of high species diversity and morphological plasticity of the traditional diagnostic characters (Wallace, 1999;Wallace et al, 2012). In the Red Sea, the situation is even more complex due to a high endemism rate as corals may exhibit characteristics or morphs that lead to different species compared to their morphologically similar, but genetically distinct, Indo-Pacific counterparts (Arrigoni et al, 2016;Dibattista et al, 2016;Berumen et al, 2019).…”