The macro- and megabenthic fauna on the continental shelf of the eastern Amundsen Sea, Antarctica

In 2008 the BIOPEARL II expedition on board of RRS James Clark Ross sailed to the eastern Amundsen Sea Embayment and Pine Island Bay, one of the least studied Antarctic continental shelf regions due to its remoteness and ice cover. A total of 37 Agassiz trawls were deployed at depth transects along the continental and trough slopes. A total of 5,469 specimens, belonging to 32 higher taxonomic groups and more than 270 species, were collected. Species richness per station varied from 1–55. The benthic assemblages were dominated by echinoderms and clearly different to those in the Ross, Scotia and Weddell seas. Here we present the macro- and megafaunal assemblage structure, its species richness and the presence of several undescribed species

Pragmatic assignment of species groups based on primary species hypotheses: the case of a dominant component of the Southern Ocean benthic fauna

Ecological studies that enhance our understanding of the structure and function of the natural world rely heavily on accurate species identification. With rapid sample accumulation and declining taxonomic expertise, cladistics, phylogenetics and coalescent-based analyses have become key tools for identification or discrimination of species. These tools differ in effectiveness and interpretation depending on researcher perspective and the unique evolutionary histories of the taxa. Given the cost and time required for taxonomic assessment of ambiguous species groups, we advocate a pragmatic approach to clarify species assignment. We carried out a case-study on species from the diverse ophiuroid genus Ophiacantha common in shelf habitats around the Southern Ocean. Although several of the species are formally described with clear and distinctive morphological characters and reproductive strategies (O. vivipara, O. pentactis, O. densispina, O. antarctica, and O. wolfarntzi), recent molecular data has highlighted issues with these morphospecies, the characters that formally define them and their evolutionary histories. Here we provide evidence that key morphological features of species can be deceptive and show that six-armed O. vivipara, for example, is not a widely distributed Southern Ocean species as currently accepted, rather, three disparate clades. Ophiacantha pentactis, described as having five arms, frequently has six arms and the six-armed form is mistakenly classified as O. vivipara. All six-armed specimens collected from the Antarctic continental shelf fall into the O. pentactis species clade. Molecular tools designed for species delimitation appear to fail to reflect the “true” species composition. Rather than rely on a single tool for species recognition, we advocate an integrated approach using traditional detailed taxonomic morphology, summary statistics of molecular sequence data from populations, robust phylogenies, sufficient geographical sampling and local biological knowledge to ensure that species hypotheses can be built on mutually supporting lines of evidence

A new brooding species of brittle-star (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) from Antarctic waters

A new brittle star attributable to the genus Ophiacantha is described from Antarctic waters, in the diffuse limits of the Antarctic Polar Front at Shag Rocks, South Georgia. The new species can be differentiated from its Southern Ocean congeners by the striations on the arm plates. Several adult individuals were observed brooding their juveniles, as the arms of the juveniles were seen emerging from the genital slits of the parent. The present paper reports this discovery, providing a description and illustrations of Ophiacantha wolfarntzi n. sp., a comparison of the species with its closest congeners and an identification key for Ophiacantha species reported from sub-Antarctic and Antarctic water

RecruitNet: A global database of plant recruitment networks

Plant recruitment interactions (i.e., what recruits under what) shape the composition, diversity, and structure of plant communities. Despite the huge body of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying recruitment interactions among species, we still know little about the structure of the recruitment networks emerging in ecological communities. Modeling and analyzing the community-level structure of plant recruitment interactions as a complex network can provide relevant information on ecological and evolutionary processes acting both at the species and ecosystem levels. We report a data set containing 143 plant recruitment networks in 23 countries across five continents, including temperate and tropical ecosystems. Each network identifies the species under which another species recruits. All networks report the number of recruits (i.e., individuals) per species. The data set includes >850,000 recruiting individuals involved in 118,411 paired interactions among 3318 vascular plant species across the globe. The cover of canopy species and open ground is also provided. Three sampling protocols were used: (1) The Recruitment Network (RN) protocol (106 networks) focuses on interactions among established plants (“canopy species”) and plants in their early stages of recruitment (“recruit species”). A series of plots was delimited within a locality, and all the individuals recruiting and their canopy species were identified; (2) The paired Canopy-Open (pCO) protocol (26 networks) consists in locating a potential canopy plant and identifying recruiting individuals under the canopy and in a nearby open space of the same area; (3) The Georeferenced plot (GP) protocol (11 networks) consists in using information from georeferenced individual plants in large plots to infer canopy-recruit interactions. Some networks incorporate data for both herbs and woody species, whereas others focus exclusively on woody species. The location of each study site, geographical coordinates, country, locality, responsible author, sampling dates, sampling method, and life habits of both canopy and recruit species are provided. This database will allow researchers to test ecological, biogeographical, and evolutionary hypotheses related to plant recruitment interactions. There are no copyright restrictions on the data set; please cite this data paper when using these data in publications

Fungal diversity notes 253-366: taxonomic and phylogenetic contributions to fungal taxa

Notes on 113 fungal taxa are compiled in this paper, including 11 new genera, 89 new species, one new subspecies, three new combinations and seven reference specimens. A wide geographic and taxonomic range of fungal taxa are detailed. In the Ascomycota the new genera Angustospora (Testudinaceae), Camporesia (Xylariaceae), Clematidis, Crassiparies (Pleosporales genera incertae sedis), Farasanispora, Longiostiolum (Pleosporales genera incertae sedis), Multilocularia (Parabambusicolaceae), Neophaeocryptopus (Dothideaceae), Parameliola (Pleosporales genera incertae sedis), and Towyspora (Lentitheciaceae) are introduced. Newly introduced species are Angustospora nilensis, Aniptodera aquibella, Annulohypoxylon albidiscum, Astrocystis thailandica, Camporesia sambuci, Clematidis italica, Colletotrichum menispermi, C. quinquefoliae, Comoclathris pimpinellae, Crassiparies quadrisporus, Cytospora salicicola, Diatrype thailandica, Dothiorella rhamni, Durotheca macrostroma, Farasanispora avicenniae, Halorosellinia rhizophorae, Humicola koreana, Hypoxylon lilloi, Kirschsteiniothelia tectonae, Lindgomyces okinawaensis, Longiostiolum tectonae, Lophiostoma pseudoarmatisporum, Moelleriella phukhiaoensis, M. pongdueatensis, Mucoharknessia anthoxanthi, Multilocularia bambusae, Multiseptospora thysanolaenae, Neophaeocryptopus cytisi, Ocellularia arachchigei, O. ratnapurensis, Ochronectria thailandica, Ophiocordyceps karstii, Parameliola acaciae, P. dimocarpi, Parastagonospora cumpignensis, Pseudodidymosphaeria phlei, Polyplosphaeria thailandica, Pseudolachnella brevifusiformis, Psiloglonium macrosporum, Rhabdodiscus albodenticulatus, Rosellinia chiangmaiensis, Saccothecium rubi, Seimatosporium pseudocornii, S. pseudorosae, Sigarispora ononidis and Towyspora aestuari. New combinations are provided for Eutiarosporella dactylidis (sexual morph described and illustrated) and Pseudocamarosporium pini. Descriptions, illustrations and/or reference specimens are designated for Aposphaeria corallinolutea, Cryptovalsa ampelina, Dothiorella vidmadera, Ophiocordyceps formosana, Petrakia echinata, Phragmoporthe conformis and Pseudocamarosporium pini. The new species of Basidiomycota are Agaricus coccyginus, A. luteofibrillosus, Amanita atrobrunnea, A. digitosa, A. gleocystidiosa, A. pyriformis, A. strobilipes, Bondarzewia tibetica, Cortinarius albosericeus, C. badioflavidus, C. dentigratus, C. duboisensis, C. fragrantissimus, C. roseobasilis, C. vinaceobrunneus, C. vinaceogrisescens, C. wahkiacus, Cyanoboletus hymenoglutinosus, Fomitiporia atlantica, F. subtilissima, Ganoderma wuzhishanensis, Inonotus shoreicola, Lactifluus armeniacus, L. ramipilosus, Leccinum indoaurantiacum, Musumecia alpina, M. sardoa, Russula amethystina subp. tengii and R. wangii are introduced. Descriptions, illustrations, notes and / or reference specimens are designated for Clarkeinda trachodes, Dentocorticium ussuricum, Galzinia longibasidia, Lentinus stuppeus and Leptocorticium tenellum. The other new genera, species new combinations are Anaeromyces robustus, Neocallimastix californiae and Piromyces finnis from Neocallimastigomycota, Phytophthora estuarina, P. rhizophorae, Salispina, S. intermedia, S. lobata and S. spinosa from Oomycota, and Absidia stercoraria, Gongronella orasabula, Mortierella calciphila, Mucor caatinguensis, M. koreanus, M. merdicola and Rhizopus koreanus in Zygomycota