Massive Devonian Rugosa of Belgium

42 p., 19 fig.http://paleo.ku.edu/contributions.htm

Mentors : the generation 1935-1985

The lives and scientific contributions of five eminent academic geologists and paleontologists; James Alloiteau (Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France), Dorothy Hill (University of Queensland, Australia), Marius Lecompte (University of Louvain, Belgium), Masao Minato (Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan), and Maria Różkowska (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland) are briefly summarized here. Each of these paleontologists made major contributions to the study of fossil corals and/or sponges, and each overcame considerable difficulties and disruptions in their lives to excel as mentors to us. All showed remarkable determination and love for paleontological research, and inspired their students and colleagues to understand details of structure and systematic positions of fossil corals and sponges. Each of these individual mentors was the subject of a presentation by a former student at the 11th International Symposium on Fossil Corals and Sponges in Liege, Belgium; thus, somewhat broader coverage of each is provided in the abstracts volume of the meeting

Desmophyllum dianthus (Esper, 1794) in the scleractinian phylogeny and its intraspecific diversity

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 7 (2012): e50215, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050215.The cosmopolitan solitary deep-water scleractinian coral Desmophyllum dianthus (Esper, 1794) was selected as a representative model species of the polyphyletic Caryophylliidae family to (1) examine phylogenetic relationships with respect to the principal Scleractinia taxa, (2) check population structure, (3) test the widespread connectivity hypothesis and (4) assess the utility of different nuclear and mitochondrial markers currently in use. To carry out these goals, DNA sequence data from nuclear (ITS and 28S) and mitochondrial (16S and COI) markers were analyzed for several coral species and for Mediterranean populations of D. dianthus. Three phylogenetic methodologies (ML, MP and BI), based on data from the four molecular markers, all supported D. dianthus as clearly belonging to the “robust” clade, in which the species Lophelia pertusa and D. dianthus not only grouped together, but also shared haplotypes for some DNA markers. Molecular results also showed shared haplotypes among D. dianthus populations distributed in regions separated by several thousands of kilometers and by clear geographic barriers. These results could reflect limited molecular and morphological taxonomic resolution rather than real widespread connectivity. Additional studies are needed in order to find molecular markers and morphological features able to disentangle the complex phylogenetic relationship in the Order Scleractinia and to differentiate isolated populations, thus avoiding the homoplasy found in some morphological characters that are still considered in the literature.This study was funded by CTM2009-00496 and CGL2011-23306 projects of the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” (Spain). Research at sea was partly supported by the European Commission F. P.VI Project HERMES Contract No. GOCE-CT-2005-511234-1) and the EU F.P. VII Project HERMIONE(contract number no. 226354)

Original structure and composition of Permian rugose and Triassic scleractinian corals

Volume: 21Start Page: 321End Page: 33

A Lower Cambrian coral from South Australia

Volume: 38Start Page: 757End Page: 77