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(Pallas, 1766) and Porites Divaricata Le Sueur, 1820 and Remarks on Other Western Atlantic Species of Porites (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) Author(S): Stephen C

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(Pallas, 1766) and Porites Divaricata Le Sueur, 1820 and Remarks on Other Western Atlantic Species of Porites (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) Author(S): Stephen C Neotypes for Porites porites (Pallas, 1766) and Porites divaricata Le Sueur, 1820 and remarks on other western Atlantic species of Porites (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) Author(s): Stephen C. Jameson and Stephen D. Cairns Source: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 125(2):189-207. 2012. Published By: Biological Society of Washington DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2988/11-07.1 URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.2988/11-07.1 BioOne (www.bioone.org) is a nonprofit, online aggregation of core research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. BioOne provides a sustainable online platform for over 170 journals and books published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses. Your use of this PDF, the BioOne Web site, and all posted and associated content indicates your acceptance of BioOne’s Terms of Use, available at www.bioone.org/page/ terms_of_use. Usage of BioOne content is strictly limited to personal, educational, and non-commercial use. Commercial inquiries or rights and permissions requests should be directed to the individual publisher as copyright holder. BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 125(2):189–207. 2012. Neotypes for Porites porites (Pallas, 1766) and Porites divaricata Le Sueur, 1820 and remarks on other western Atlantic species of Porites (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) Stephen C. Jameson* and Stephen D. Cairns Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, U.S.A., e-mail: (SCJ) [email protected], (SDC) [email protected] Abstract.—To stabilize the taxonomy of the genus Porites in the western Atlantic and provide a foundation from which to launch future taxonomic research, neotypes for the coral species Porites porites and P. divaricata are chosen and Porites verrillii is proposed as a junior synonym of P. astreoides. Colony photographs and stereo scanning electron micrographs are provided of corallites of: 1) neotypes of P. porites (i.e., the P. clavaria holotype) and P. divaricata, 2) the holotypes of P. furcata, P. branneri, P. colonensis, and P. verrillii, and 3) a common P. astreoides. A brief taxonomic history of the genus is also provided. Keywords: coral taxonomy, neotypes, Porites divaricata, Porites porites, Porites verrillii, western Atlantic The purpose of this nomenclatural the holotypes of P. furcata, P. branneri, P. rectification (i.e., this is not a taxonomic colonensis, and P. verrillii. Stereo scanning revision of the western Atlantic species of electron micrographs of corallites of a Porites) is to stabilize the taxonomy of common P. astreoides from Belize are also western Atlantic branching species of provided to compare against those of P. Porites in an effort to provide a strong verrillii. foundation for launching future Porites By creating a reliable suite of type taxonomic research. Whether a species is specimens for the Poritidae in the western valid or not, their names need to be defined Atlantic, we will enable researchers to be by a type species, in this case neotypes. more confident when they are choosing This stabilization process will accomplish field specimens of Porites for taxonomic the following: 1) provide a brief taxonomic analysis and be more confident when they history of the western Atlantic species of are making scientific comparisons among the genus Porites; 2) designate neotypes for species of Porites. the coral species Porites porites and P. In the western Atlantic Ocean, living divaricata; 3) propose Porites verrillii as a representatives of the stony coral family junior synonym of P. astreoides; and 4) Poritidae Gray, 1842 consist of the single provide stereo scanning electron micro- genus Porites Link, 1807. For the purpose graphs of corallites of neotypes for the of stabilizing the taxonomy of Porites in coral species Porites porites (i.e., the P. the western Atlantic, the species P. as- clavaria holotype) and P. divaricata and of treoides Lamarck, 1816 is recognized with the astreoid-type corallite structure of * Corresponding author. (Figs. 1A, B, 2) (Bernard 1906, Jameson 190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON Fig. 1. Stylized diagrams (modified after Bernard 1906) illustrating the two basic forms of the theca of Porites. A and B illustrate ‘‘ideal’’ horizontal and vertical sections, respectively, of the astreoid-type corallite form found in Porites astreoides. C and D illustrate ideal horizontal and vertical sections, respectively of the non-astreoid corallite form found in P. porites, P. furcata, P. divaricata, P. colonensis, and P. branneri. 1995, 1997), whereas the species P. porites nent of many geological and biological (Pallas, 1766), P. furcata Lamarck, 1816, studies in the Caribbean and western P. divaricata Le Sueur, 1820, P. branneri Atlantic (Ginsburg 1994). Poritids also Rathbun, 1887, and P. colonensis Zlatar- play a variety of important roles: 1) ski, 1990 are recognized with the non- esthetically, as a beautiful natural compo- astreoid type (Figs. 1C, D, 3) corallite nent of coral reefs and as one of four structure (Bernard 1906, Jameson 1995, genera that constitute the majority of the 1997). Colony photographs are provided dead coral trade for ornaments and in Fig. 4. jewelry; 2) ecologically, as prime habitat It is important to understand the tax- onomy and systematics of recent and fossil for a wide variety of tropical organisms; 3) poritids in the western Atlantic because of economically, in the aquarium industry; 4) the major role they have and continue to medically, for use in bone grafts (Green & play in the structure, ecology, and evolu- Shirley 1999); and 5) scientifically, as tion of coral reef ecosystems (Garthwaite indicators of climate change (Pernetta et al. 1994) and because they have been 1993, Omata et al. 2006, Tanzil et al. and continue to be an important compo- 2009). VOLUME 125, NUMBER 2 191 Fig. 2. Illustration showing how astreoid corallite characters were measured in Jameson (1995). Corallite characters: CL ¼ corallite length; L1 ¼ septum length (dorsal); L2 ¼ septum length (ventral); L3 ¼ septum length (lateral); RL ¼ columella synapticular ring length; RT ¼ columella synapticular ring thickness; T1 ¼ septum thickness (dorsal); T2 ¼ septum thickness (ventral); T3 ¼ septum thickness (lateral); WT ¼ wall thickness. Brief taxonomic history.—The overlap- Working with Porites off Miami, Florida, ping morphological variation within and and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, elec- among poritids makes their taxonomy trophoretic results of Potts et al. (1993) among the most difficult of all sclerac- found fixed allele differences that distin- tinians (Rathbun 1887, Rehberg 1893, guished P. porites and P. furcata from P. Vaughan 1901, Bernard 1906, Brakel divaricata and that distinguished P. as- 1977, Cairns 1982, Foster 1986, Zlatarski treoides from P. porites, P. furcata, and P. 1990, Weil 1992, Potts et al. 1993, divaricata (as would be expected because Garthwaite et al. 1994, Jameson 1995, of the astreoid vs. non-astreoid corallite 1997). structural differences). Potts et al. (1993) Weil (1992) found fixed allele differences made no mention of fixed allele differences among P. astreoides, P. porites, P. furcata, among all three branching species. P. divaricata, P. colonensis, and P. branneri An independent morphometric method off Panama, using electrophoresis on 11 for identifying species of Porites remained polymorphic loci from 9 enzyme systems. elusive until Jameson (1995, 1997) deter- 192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON Fig. 3. Illustration showing how non-astreoid corallite characters were measured in Jameson (1995). Corallite characters: CL ¼ corallite length; L1 ¼ septum length (dorsal); L2 ¼ septum length (ventral); L3 ¼ septum length (lateral); P2 ¼ palus thickness (ventral); P3 ¼ palus thickness (lateral); RL ¼ columella synapticular ring length; RT ¼ columella synapticular ring thickness; SD ¼ septal denticle thickness; SL ¼ septal denticle synapticular ring length; ST ¼ septal denticle synapticular ring thickness; T1 ¼ septum thickness (dorsal); T2 ¼ septum thickness (ventral); T3 ¼ septum thickness (lateral); WT ¼ wall thickness. mined that the Poritidae off Belize can be Based on the fixed allele differences distinguished in most cases (i.e., there is a found among the branching Porites by certain degree of overlap in the canonical Weil (1992) and Potts et al. (1993), their discriminant analysis polygons used in this morphometric differences (Jameson 1995, tool, more so between P. porites and P. 1997), and their unique habitat preferences furcata than between P. furcata and P. and colony colors (Jameson 1995, 1997), this paper treats the branching Porites as divaricata – Fig. 4 in Jameson 1997), using three distinct species (P. porites, P. furcata, carefully selected linear morphometric P. divaricata), not forma per Vaughan characters and multivariate discriminant (1901). Veron (2000) also recognizes the analysis. Jameson (1995, 1997) also pro- western Atlantic branching Porites as three vided qualitative and quantitative keys for distinct species. distinguishing species of Porites in the field Recent DNA-based taxonomic research off Belize. reported in conference presentations
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