Document of bibliographic reference 314178

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Natural history collections as a basis for sound biodiversity assessments: Plexauridae (Octocorallia, Holaxonia) of the Naturalis CANCAP and Tyro Mauritania II expeditions

Abstract

Mapping biodiversity is the marathon of the 21st Century as an answer to the present extinction crisis. A century in which science is also characterised by large scientific datasets collected through new technolo- gies aiming to fill gaps in our knowledge of species distributions. However, most species records rely on observations that are not linked to specimens, which does not allow verification of species hypotheses by other scientists. Natural history museums form a verifiable source of biodiversity records which were made by taxonomists. Nonetheless, these museums seem to be forgotten by biologists in scientific fields other than taxonomy or systematics. Naturalis Biodiversity Center (NBC) in Leiden is care keeper of large collections of marine organisms, which were sampled in the Northeast Atlantic during the CANCAP and Tyro Mauritania II expeditions (1976–1988). Many octocorals were sampled and deposited in the NBC collection, where they became available for study and were partially identified by the senior author (M.G.) in the 1980s. Nonetheless, no checklist or taxonomic revision was published so far with the complete results. In 2016 the first author visited NBC to examine NE Atlantic Plexauridae octocorals. Plexauridae octocoral-vouchered records were listed and mapped to reveal high standard primary biodiversity records unreported so far for the NE Atlantic Ocean. Twenty-four Plexauridae species with ~ six putative new species to science were discovered and eleven new biogeographical records were made from distinct Macaronesian archipelagos. Finally, new depth range records were found for three species at sea basin level and for eight species at a regional scale.

WebOfScience code

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000479028800001

Bibliographic citation

Sampaio, I.; Carreiro-Silva, M.; Freiwald, A.; Menezes, G.M.; Grasshoff, M. (2019). Natural history collections as a basis for sound biodiversity assessments: Plexauridae (Octocorallia, Holaxonia) of the Naturalis CANCAP and Tyro Mauritania II expeditions. ZooKeys 870: 1-32. https://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.870.35285

Is peer reviewed

true

Access rights

open access

Is accessible for free

true