Taxonomy and life history of the Acropora-eating flatworm Amakusaplana acroporae nov. sp. (Polycladida: Prosthiostomidae)

The corallivorous flatworm Amakusaplana acroporae: an invasive species threat to coral reefs?

“…1a). As described by Rawlinson et al (2011), another clue to the presence of the parasite was clusters of *5 to *90 eggs found only on bare skeleton with close proximity to live coral tissue (ESM Fig. 1b-c).…”

“…from Okinawa (Matsushima et al 2010). Analysis of the 28S rDNA region identified the UK strain as the recently described A. acroporae, an AEFW from two US aquaria and from one natural location on Lizard Island (Rawlinson et al 2011;Rawlinson and Stella 2012) (ESM Fig. 3b).…”

“…1, ESM Table 1) together with the results of the present paper revealed that many of the unidentified AEFWs show characteristics of A. acroporae such as exclusive preference for a diverse range of acroporids, excellent camouflage, preferred occurrence on the shaded branch sides, the typical 'bite marks' and egg clusters being deposited on dead skeletons (ESM Table 1). A. acroporae was considered responsible for the loss of Acropora colonies at Birch Aquarium (USA) (Nosratpour 2008;Rawlinson et al 2011). Taken together, these data suggest that A. acroporae is globally distributed in land-based coral cultures, including regions close to natural coral reefs such as Florida, Thailand or Hong Kong (Fig.…”

“…Early stages of infestations with these well-camouflaged AEFWs often manifest as pale 'bite marks' (Nosratpour 2008; ESM Table 1). Most recently AEFWs from two US aquaria were described as a new species (Amakusaplana acroporae) within the phylum Platyhelminthes (Rawlinson et al 2011), which was subsequently found on A. valida in one natural location off Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef (GBR) (Rawlinson and Stella 2012). The guts and parenchyma of A. acroporae contained nematocysts and zooxanthellae, suggesting that the damage to the corals is due to feeding by the worms (Rawlinson et al 2011;Rawlinson and Stella 2012).…”

“…Most recently AEFWs from two US aquaria were described as a new species (Amakusaplana acroporae) within the phylum Platyhelminthes (Rawlinson et al 2011), which was subsequently found on A. valida in one natural location off Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef (GBR) (Rawlinson and Stella 2012). The guts and parenchyma of A. acroporae contained nematocysts and zooxanthellae, suggesting that the damage to the corals is due to feeding by the worms (Rawlinson et al 2011;Rawlinson and Stella 2012). Another Acropora-associated worm is an acoel from the phylogenetically distant taxon Waminoa (phylum Acoelomorpha), which shows a striking phenotypic similarity to A. acroporae (Matsushima et al 2010), making it difficult to assign the reported AEFW infestation to one or the other species.…”