Cyphastrea salae, a new species of hard coral from Lord Howe Island, Australia (Scleractinia, Merulinidae)

Baird, Andrew H., Hoogenboom, Mia O., and Huang, Danwei (2017) Cyphastrea salae, a new species of hard coral from Lord Howe Island, Australia (Scleractinia, Merulinidae). ZooKeys, 662. pp. 49-66.

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Abstract

A new zooxanthellate reef-dwelling scleractinian coral species, Cyphastrea salae sp. n. (Scleractinia, Merulinidae), is described from Lord Howe Island Australia. The new species can be distinguished morphologically from the only other congeneric species on Lord Howe Island, C. microphthalma, by the number of primary septa (12 vs. 10) and the much taller corallites (mean +/- SE: 1.0 +/- 0.07 mm v 0.4 +/- 0.04 mm). The relationship of C. salae to four of the other eleven currently accepted species in the genus was explored through analyses of nuclear (28S rDNA) and mitochondrial (noncoding intergenic region) gene sequences. Cyphastrea salae sp. n. forms a strongly supported clade that is distinct from a clade containing three species found commonly in Australia, C. chalcidicum, C. serailia, and C. microphthalma. One specimen was also found in the Solitary Islands, another high latitude location in south-eastern Australia. The discovery of a new species in the genus Cyphastrea on high latitude reefs in south-eastern Australia suggests that other new species might be found among more diverse genera represented here and that the scleractinian fauna of these isolated locations is more distinct than previously recognised.

Item ID: 50328
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1313-2970
Keywords: biodiversity, biogeography, cnidarian, coral reefs, phylogenetics
Additional Information:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funders: US National Science Foundation (NSF), National University of Singapore (NUS), Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Projects and Grants: NSF grand DEB-1145043-1145408, NUS Start-up grant R-154-000-698-651
Date Deposited: 20 Sep 2017 07:54
FoR Codes: 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310401 Animal systematics and taxonomy @ 50%
31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310410 Phylogeny and comparative analysis @ 50%
SEO Codes: 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9608 Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity > 960808 Marine Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity @ 100%
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