bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.01.277210; this version posted September 2, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Title: New shallow water species of Caribbean Ircinia Nardo, 1833 (Porifera: Irciniidae) 2 Authors: Joseph B. Kelly1,2*, Robert W. Thacker1,3 3 4 Affiliations: 5 1Stony Brook University, Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook NY, USA. 6 2Limnological Institute University Konstanz, Aquatic Ecology and Evolution, Konstanz, 7 Germany. 8 3Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Box 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama. 9 *Correspondence to:
[email protected]. 10 11 Abstract 12 Seven Ircinia growth forms were collected from three sites in the Caribbean (Bocas del Toro, 13 Panama; the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, Belize; and the Florida Keys, United States of 14 America). Previous research used an integrative taxonomic framework to delimit species 15 boundaries among these growth forms. Here, we present descriptions for these species, six of 16 which are new to science (Ircinia lowi sp. nov., Ircinia bocatorensis sp. nov., Ircinia radix sp. 17 nov., Ircinia laeviconulosa sp. nov., Ircinia vansoesti sp. nov., Ircinia rutzleri sp. nov.) in 18 addition to one species conferre (Ircinia cf. reteplana Topsent, 1923). 19 20 Introduction 21 Ircinia Nardo, 1833 is a genus of sponges diagnosable from other genera in the family 22 Irciniidae Gray, 1867 by the possession of cored fascicular primary fibers and the lack of cortical 23 armoring (Hooper & van Soest, 2002).