Annual Distribution of Dendrophylliid Coral Lineage

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Lineage – Scientific methodology

Annual distribution of the dendrophylliid coral Enallopsammia cf. marenzelleri lineage

Enallopsammia cf. marenzelleri Zibrowius, 1973 is a tentatively identified scleractinian coral known until recently from a single collection of 13 branch fragments from 333–371 m depth on the Macquarie Ridge southwest of New Zealand (Cairns 1982, 1995). E. marenzelleri is known from the Indo-West Pacific and the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, at depths of about 600–800 m, but has not been reported from New Zealand waters.

1. Literature.

All information pertaining to the distribution of this species in New Zealand is given by Cairns (1982, 1995); searches of ASFA, Web of Science, and Google (Enallopsammia) on 22 November 2005 returned no additional useful material dealing with this species or E. marenzelleri in New Zealand waters.

2. Museum holdings.

All the New Zealand E. cf. marenzelleri material is held by the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. NIWA’s AllSeaBio database was examined for records on 26 August 2005, with no specimens recorded. (The E. rostrata var. marenzelleri collected on 12 September 1958 [SL39565] was from well north of New Zealand.) Additions made to the collection since about 1995 have not been loaded onto this database; a search on 29 November 2005 for identified and shelved E. cf. marenzelleri revealed no new material. However, a review of new or newly available data on the NIWA Invertebrate Collection database Specify in November 2007 provided locality data for 2 additional records, one from a seamount on the north Chatham Rise in 890–955 m, and the other from a region of seamounts northeast of the northern tip of the North Island in 790–880 m. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa records of the Cnidaria have not yet been entered onto the KEEMu database; however, there were no entries for this species in their catalogue for the Cnidaria.

2009 update: Examination of the NIWA Invertebrate Collection database Specify in May 2009 revealed two recent records of Enallopsammia cf.

marenzelleri collected from two sites on the Macquarie Ridge in April 2008. These records fall within the known spatial and depth distribution for the species.

3. Summary

Enallopsammia cf. marenzelleri is a scleractinian coral (stony coral, family Dendrophylliidae) known in the New Zealand region from only three stations, on the Macquarie Ridge, the north Chatham Rise, and off Northland—but it seems most unlikely that the species is confined to these localities. The original specimens (from the Macquarie Ridge) were taken at the same station (Eltanin Stn 1411) as E. rostrata, one of about a dozen virtually cosmopolitan scleractinian corals that occur at relatively great depths (Cairns 1995). Although E. marenzelleri does not appear to be such a widespread species, confined so far outside the New Zealand region to the Indo-West Pacific (including the Nicobar Islands and off Indonesia) and the Northeast Atlantic (including the Meteor Seamount and off the Azores) at depths of about 600–800 m (Cairns 1995), its occurrence often seems to broadly match that of E. rostrata where the two species co-occur. E. rostrata (which is mainly, but not exclusively [M. Clark, NIWA, pers. comm.] on seamounts and ridges) is widespread in New Zealand waters, usually deeper than 500 m, to 1300 m (Cairns 1995). It is assumed in this document that the 100% distribution of E. cf. marenzelleri in New Zealand waters is the areas of seamounts, ridges, and hard bottom regions between 300 m and 900 m surrounding the north-eastern and eastern Chatham Rise, the seas off the north-eastern coast of the North Island, and the Macquarie Ridge, and the Unknown distribution is all other seamounts and ridges in the New Zealand region at depths of 300–900 m. (Sea temperature may play a role in determining depth, the species possibly being in the shallower part of this range in the south and in the deeper part further north.) Areas outside this depth range are taken to be the area of the Known not to exist distribution. However, these distributions must be very tentative because of the limited material collected from the New Zealand area, and its ecological requirements elsewhere are poorly known. Furthermore, the species is probably not confined to seamounts and ridges.

Information on the distribution of Enallopsammia cf. marenzelleri was initially synthesised by John D. Booth NIWA, Wellington, reviewed by Rick Webber, then Curator of Crustacea (and in charge of the Cnidaria collection), Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and later updated by Owen Anderson and Di Tracey (NIWA). The rounded 100%, Unknown, and Known not to exist distributions lines were digitised and imported into a GIS software package as layers. The area of each distribution class was calculated and the layers linked to attribute and metadata files. It is concluded that E. cf. marenzelleri is likely to be more widespread than the records so far indicates, including unfished or only lightly fished areas. It is also important to note that Cairns (1995) remained tentative about the identification of E. cf. marenzelleri.

4. References

Cairns, S.D. (1982). Antarctic and Subantarctic Scleractinia. Antarctic Research Series 34(1). 74 p. Cairns, S.D. (1995). The marine fauna of New Zealand: Scleractinia (Cnidaria: Anthozoa). New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Memoir 103.