Document of bibliographic reference 396686

BibliographicReference record

Type

Bibliographic resource

Type of document

Journal article

BibLvlCode

AS

Title

Four new species of Tubastraea (Scleractinia, Dendrophylliidae) from the Brazilian Coast, Southwestern Atlantic

Abstract

In Brazil, two species of exotic ‘sun corals’ have been cited, majorly in ecological studies, over the last two decades. In Bahia State, colonies were registered for the first time in 2008 in a shipwreck in the Todos-os-Santos Bay. Since then, these species have spread locally across artificial and natural environments comprising variable patterns of interspecific morphologies. However, the identifications of these dendrophylliids have been circumstantially influenced by a single morphological aspect, the development of corallites: plocoid colonies have been referred to as Tubastraea coccinea, and dendroid morphotypes as Tubastraea tagusensis. Thus, the main goal of this study was to analyze the patterns of the morphological variation of sun corals from the Bahia State (12oS, Southwestern Atlantic), inferring their interspecific limits. Skeleton macro and micromorphology analyses provided evidence for the presence of seven species in this coastal section. As a result, we describe four new Tubastraea species: Tubastraea ramosa sp. nov., Tubastraea columnata sp. nov., Tubastraea.grandidentata sp. nov., and Tubastraea megalostoma sp. nov. A new distribution record is reported for Tubastraea faulkneri in Brazil. A morphological diagnosis was developed for all seven Brazilian sun coral species. Finally, two identification keys, the worldwide and the Brazilian Tubastraea species are provided.

Bibliographic citation

Serra, S.; Bastos, N; Coutinho, R.; Schizas, N.V.; Johnson, R.; Neves, E. (2024). Four new species of Tubastraea (Scleractinia, Dendrophylliidae) from the Brazilian Coast, Southwestern Atlantic. Pan-American Journal of Aquatic Sciences 19(2). https://dx.doi.org/10.54451/panamjas.19.2.113

Topic

Marine

Is peer reviewed

true