Four New Records of Eunicidae (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the Western Philippines Islands
- PDF / 1,652,978 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 59 Downloads / 195 Views
Four New Records of Eunicidae (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the Western Philippines Islands Ainhoa Díaz 1 & Eduardo López 1 Received: 18 February 2020 / Revised: 14 May 2020 / Accepted: 12 June 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract During December 2010, an expedition was conducted to the Philippines Islands aiming to collect coastal polychaetes in the area. Among the abundant material, 593 individuals belonging to the family Eunicidae (Annelida; Polychaeta) were found and studied, and their identification yielded seven species. Four of them were new records to Philippines, enlarging the list of eunicid polychaetes of the country from 32 to 36 species; moreover, two of the species new for these islands were also new records to South China Sea. Additionally, the taxonomic status of one of them is modified, by transferring it from genus Eunice Cuvier, 1817 to Leodice Lamarck, 1818. Eunicids are especially abundant and diverse in benthic environments of tropical seas, were they act mainly as predators and scavengers or as herbivores. Some species are important in coral reefs because their boring abilities make them key organisms in the bioerosion processes. In this respect, knowledge on the composition of their communities is of capital for the understanding of ecological structure of the system. Keywords Polychaeta . Eunicidae . New records . Philippines . South China Sea
Introduction Eunicidae (Eunicida: Polychaeta) is one of the largest families of polychaeta, with more than 250 valid species belonging to eight genera, of which Eunice Cuvier, 1817 is by far the most diverse (Carrera-Parra 2009). It is probably the one with the widest range of length, with species being no more than 15 mm long as adults, such as Eunice marovoi Gibbs, 1971, while some others can attain up to 4 m, as Eunice aphroditois (Pallas,1788) (Fauchald 1992a). Eunicidae occur worldwide, but exhibit higher species diversity in warm waters (Fauchald 1992a). They inhabit from the intertidal to abyssal depths (Rouse and Pleijel 2001) both in soft and hard bottoms, but a greater number of species can be found in the latter where they dwell in cracks and crevices of rock and biogenic structures (Fauchald 1992a) mainly as free living animals and only exceptionally in permanent tubes (Carrera-Parra 2009). Reports of feeding include predation on various invertebrates,
* Eduardo López [email protected] 1
Department of Biology, Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/Darwin, 2, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
scavenging and herbivorous behavior (Rouse and Pleijel 2001), but more specialized feeding behaviors are known. Some species have been reported as symbiotic with other sessile invertebrates, mainly sponges and soft corals (HartmannSchröder and Zibrowius 1998), whereas others are specialized in boring seagrass leaves (Gambi et al. 2003). Eunicids are known to drill the calcareous skeleton of hard corals using their complex and extremely hard jaw apparatus; when they occur in great
Data Loading...
