Tag Archives: Australia

Door #20: How many undescribed bristle worms live in Australian waters?

The answer is, of course, “we don’t know”. But we *can* say that Australian polychaete fauna is largely undescribed. As an example, 91 new species and 67 new records of polychaete worms were found in the vicinity of a single small island at Great Barrier Reef as a result of a joint effort of 16 polychaete experts that spent two weeks at the Lizard Island Research Station of the Australian Museum in 2013.

Not only the Great Barrier Reef polychaete fauna is poorly studied, various areas of Australian east coast apparently also have numerous undescribed species especially in the deeper waters. Here you can see few examples of recently described new species of bristle worms from Australian.

Rhamphobrachium nutrix Paxton & Budaeva, 2015 from the Lizard Island, 9-36 m

Rhamphobrachium nutrix Paxton & Budaeva, 2015 from the Lizard Island, 9-36 m

Paradiopatra piccola Paxton & Budaeva, 2013 from eastern Australia, 124-500 m

Paradiopatra piccola Paxton & Budaeva, 2013 from eastern Australia, 124-500 m

Undescribed species from the genus Onuphis from the Lizard Island, intertidal (Photo: A. Semenov)

Undescribed species from the genus Onuphis from the Lizard Island, intertidal (Photo: A. Semenov)

Anchinothria parvula Budaeva & Paxton 2013 from eastern Australia, 244 m

Anchinothria parvula Budaeva & Paxton 2013 from eastern Australia, 244 m

Neosabellides lizae from the intertidal

Neosabellides lizae from the intertidal (Alvestad T., Budaeva N. 2015)

Suggested reading:

Special Volume Zootaxa 4019 (Open Access) Coral reef-associated fauna of Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef: polychaetes and allies http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2015/4019(1).html

Alvestad T., Budaeva N. 2015. Neosabellides lizae, a new species of Ampharetidae (Annelida) from Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Zootaxa, 4019: 61–69.  http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4019.1.6

Paxton H., Budaeva N. 2015. Minibrachium, a new subgenus of Rhamphobrachium (Annelida: Onuphidae) from Australia with the description of three new species. Zootaxa, 4019: 621–634. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4019.1.21

Budaeva N., Paxton. H. 2013. Nothria and Anchinothria (Annelida: Onuphidae) from Eastern Australian waters with a discussion of ontogenetic variation of diagnostic characters. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK, 93: 1481–1502.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025315412001956

Paxton H., Budaeva N. 2013. Paradiopatra (Annelida: Onuphidae) from eastern Australian waters, with the description of six new species. Zootaxa, 3686: 140–164.  http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3686.2.2

Nataliya Budaeva’s web page: http://nataliyabudaeva.wix.com/nataliyabudaeva

-Nataliya

Door #16: First molecular-based phylogeny of onuphid bristle worms

Onuphidae are marine bristle worms with very rich external morphology and outstanding diversity of life styles within a single polychaete family. Onuphids can be very abundant in some marine biotopes, modifying the environment by their complex ornamented tubes and influencing the structure of benthic communities. They are very widely spread in the ocean inhabiting various biotopes from the intertidal zone down to hadal depths. Onuphids are widely harvested as bait sustaining local fisheries in southeastern Australia, Mediterranean and Portuguese coasts and are even commercially farmed with the full reproductive cycle from fertilization till fully-grown worms (up to 30 cm in length) in aquaculture facility.

Nothria otsuchiensis - a bristle worm from NSW, Australia (author N. Budaeva)

Nothria otsuchiensis – a bristle worm from NSW, Australia (author N. Budaeva)

The system of Onuphidae with 23 genera grouped into two subfamilies has been suggested by Hannelore Paxton (1986) and has been widely accepted since then. The first phylogeny based on the analysis of the combination of 16S rDNA and 18S rDNA genes has been recently published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. None of the subfamilies or tested genera appeared to be para- or polyphyletic showing a strong congruence between the traditional morphology-based systematics of the family and the newly obtained molecular-based phylogenetic reconstruction. However the previously suggested hypotheses on intrageneraic relationships within onuphidae were largely rejected.

Phylogenetic tree of a bristle worm family Onuphidae (Budaeva et al., 2016)

Phylogenetic tree of a bristle worm family Onuphidae (Budaeva et al., 2016)

Suggested reading:

Budaeva N., Schepetov D., Zanol J., Neretina T., Willassen E. 2016. When molecules support morphology: Phylogenetic reconstruction of the family Onuphidae (Eunicida, Annelida) based on 16S rDNA and 18S rDNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 94(B): 791–801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2015.10.011

Paxton, H., 1986. Generic revision and relationships of the family Onuphidae (Annelida: Polychaeta). Records of the Australian Museum 38, 1–74. http://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/journals/17658/175_complete.pdf

Aquabait Marine Worm Aquaculture: http://www.aquabait.com.au/about_aquabait_marine_worm_aquaculture.phtml

Nataliya Budaeva’s web page: http://nataliyabudaeva.wix.com/nataliyabudaeva

-Nataliya