Three new species and the molecular phylogeny of Antipathozoanthus from the Indo-Pacific Ocean (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia, Zoantharia)

Abstract

In this study, three new species of macrocnemic zoantharians (Hexacorallia, Zoantharia) are described from localities in the Indo-Pacific Ocean including the Red Sea, the Maldives, Palau, and southern Japan: Antipathozoanthus obscurus sp. n., A. remengesaui sp. n., and A. cavernus sp. n. Although the genus Antipathozoanthus is currently restricted to species living on antipatharians, A. obscurus sp. n. is not associated with any living substrate and instead is found on coral reef carbonate substrate within narrow caves or cracks. The two new species that have association with antipatharians, A. remengesaui sp. n. and A. cavernus sp. n., can be distinguished by their relative coenenchyme development and the antipatharian species that each uses as substrate. Additionally, all new species described in this study have unique nuclear internal transcribed spacer region of ribosomal DNA (ITS-rDNA) sequences. Our results indicate that more phylogenetic studies focusing on increasing the numbers of species examined within each of the genera of Parazoanthidae are required in order to better understand the evolutionary history of substrate specificity within the family Parazoanthidae.

Zoantharia (Cnidaria: Hexacorallia) of the Dutch Caribbean and One New Species of Parazoanthus

“…Currently, only one species, A. macaronesicus (Ocaña & Brito, 2003) [59], is known for the genus Antipathozoanthus from the Atlantic. However, four species of the genus have been described from the Indian and Pacific Oceans [60,61]. Thus, given the distance from confirmed records of A. macaronesicus in the East Atlantic, we here identify all specimens as Antipathozoanthus aff.…”

Exploring the Biodiversity of Understudied Benthic Taxa at Mesophotic and Deeper Depths: Examples From the Order Zoantharia (Anthozoa: Hexacorallia)

“…Sequences from specimen MISE-MZ4 from Okinawa grouped closely with previously reported sequences of Savalia savaglia from Marseille, France (Sinniger et al, 2005) with ML = 100%. Similarly, sequences from specimen ZMTAU Co 37441 from Israel formed a clade (ML = 66%) with Antipathozoanthus remengesaui from Japan, the Maldives, the Red Sea and Palau (Kise et al, 2017). Finally, specimen MISE-MZ5 from Okinawa was placed within the large Umimayanthus subclade with moderate support (ML = 60%) (Figure 4).…”

A new Antipathozoanthus species (Cnidaria, Hexacorallia, Zoantharia) from the northwest Pacific Ocean

“…As the generic name indicates, Antipathozoanthus species generally utilize antipatharians (Hexacorallia: Antipatharia) as their obligate substrate (Sinniger et al 2010). However, A. obscurus Kise et al, 2017 described from Okinawa, Japan, and the Red Sea, is not associated with any antipatharians and instead is found in cracks and caves on coral-reef substrates (Kise et al 2017). Thus, substrate specificity to antipatharians within the genus Antipathozoanthus is not all-inclusive, unlike as originally theorized (Sinniger et al 2010).…”

“…Antipathozoanthus Sinniger, Reimer & Pawlowski, 2010 within the family Parazoanthidae Delage & Hérouard, 1901 is a genus that has been the subject of recent research in Japanese waters (Sinniger et al 2010;Kise et al 2017). This genus currently contains five species (Reimer and Sinniger 2021), with records from Madagascar (Sinniger et al 2010), the Red Sea, Palau, Maldives, Japan (Reimer et al 2014;Kise et al 2017;Reimer et al 2019) in the Indo-West Pacific, and Ecuador (Reimer and Fujii 2010;Bo et al 2012;Jaramillo et al 2018) in the eastern Pacific Ocean, as well as from St. Helena (Santos et al 2019), Cape Verde, Principe Islands (Ocaña and Brito 2003;Ocaña et al 2007;Sinniger et al 2010), and Curaçao (Montenegro et al 2020) in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean. As the generic name indicates, Antipathozoanthus species generally utilize antipatharians (Hexacorallia: Antipatharia) as their obligate substrate (Sinniger et al 2010).…”

“…nov., utilizing morphological and phylogenetic data. With this addition, the entire Japanese zoantharian fauna now comprises 37 recorded species, representing 16 of the 28 currently-recognized genera across nine families (see also Reimer and Fujii 2017;Kise et al 2017Kise et al , 2018Kise et al , 2019Reimer et al 2019).…”