Melithaeidae (Coelenterata: Anthozoa) from the Indian Ocean and the Malay Archipelago

Melithaeidae from the Indian Ocean and the Malay Archipelago are described and figured, including three new species: Clathraria maldivensis, C. omanensis and Acabaria andamanensis. A lectotype is designated for Acabaria variabilis (Hickson)

Towards a revision of the nephtheidae (coelenterata: octocorallia)

The current classification of the Nephtheidae (Cnidaria, Octocorallia) is still based on colony morphology. In this family the Indo-Pacific genera Litophyton, Nephthea, Dendronephthya and Stereonephthya, and the Atlantic genus Neospongodes form a complex mix of closely related, poorly described species, which cannot be recognized using only colony morphology. Attempts with the more modern approach of comparing skeleton composition (sclerites) resulted in describing the genus Chromonephthea Ofwegen, 2005, introduced for several species previously assigned to Dendronephthya, Nephthea and Stereonephthya. In Chromonephthea 53 species were included, 34 of which were new to science. However, the true generic status of the majority of the nominal nephtheid species remained unresolved. In an attempt to clarify the phylogenetic relationships fourteen specimens have been used in molecular analyses. Two clades were supported, which were related to the shape of the sclerites present in the polyp stalks. One clade contained the specimens with characters for Stereonephthya along with a Chromonephthea specimen as a sister group. The other clade had a __true__ Nephthea and Litophyton together with the specimens that could not be placed in any particular genus using the old classification criteria. The consequences of these results for nephtheid classification are discussed

A new species of Alertigorgia (Coelenterata: Octocorallia: Anthothelidae) from the Indo Malayan region

A new species of Alertigorgia from Indonesian waters is described and depicted, and compared with the hitherto only described species in the genus, A. orientalis (Ridley, 1884). The species is part of a unique association in which a mollusc species lives on an octocoral, which on its turn lives on a sponge species

A centuries old problem in nephtheid taxonomy approached using DNA data (Coelenterata: Alcyonacea)

The current centuries old classification of the family Nephtheidae is still mostly based on colony morphology. In this family the Indo-Pacifc genera Litophyton, Nephthea, Dendronephthya and Stereonephthya, and the Atlantic genus Neospongodes form a complex mix of closely related, poorly described species which cannot be recognized using only colony morphology. Attempts with the more modern approach of comparing skeleton composition (sclerites) have been only partly successful because of the extreme variation of sclerite forms present in these genera. The genus Chromonephthea Van Ofwegen, 2005, introduced for several species previously assigned to Dendronephthya, Nephthea and Stereonephthya, was established with sclerite morphology, but the true generic status of the majority of the nominal species of these genera remained unresolved. In an attempt to clarify the phylogenetic relationships between Litophyton, Nephthea, Stereonephthya and Chromonephthea fourteen specimens, unidentified but certainly belonging to these genera, have been used in molecular analyses. All analyses supported two clades, which could be related to the shape of the sclerites present in the polyp stalks. One clade contained the specimens with characters for Stereonephthya along with the Chromonephthea specimen as a sister group. The other clade had a 'true' Nephthea and Litophyton together with the specimens that could not be placed in any particular genus using the old classifi cation criteria. The consequences of these results for nephtheid classifi cation are discussed

The magnitude of global marine species diversity

Background: The question of how many marine species exist is important because it provides a metric for how much we do and do not know about life in the oceans. We have compiled the first register of the marine species of the world and used this baseline to estimate how many more species, partitioned among all major eukaryotic groups, may be discoveredResults: There are ~226,000 eukaryotic marine species described. More species were described in the past decade (~20,000) than in any previous one. The number of authors describing new species has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of new species described in the past six decades. We report that there are ~170,000 synonyms, that 58,000–72,000 species are collected but not yet described, and that 482,000–741,000 more species have yet to be sampled. Molecular methods may add tens of thousands of cryptic species. Thus, there may be 0.7–1.0 million marine species. Past rates of description of new species indicate there may be 0.5 ± 0.2 million marine species. On average 37% (median 31%) of species in over 100 recent field studies around the world might be new to science.Conclusions: Currently, between one-third and two-thirds of marine species may be undescribed, and previous estimates of there being well over one million marine species appear highly unlikely. More species than ever before are being described annually by an increasing number of authors. If the current trend continues, most species will be discovered this century