Abstract
This study performs a morphological and molecular characterization of the species belonging to the genus Aulactinia from Mar del Plata (Argentina), previously identified as A. marplatensis and A. reynaudi. The great similarity in the natural history of these species, and our results on external and internal anatomy, clearly suggests that the sea anemones of the genus Aulactinia inhabiting the studied areas must be considered a single species, A. marplatensis. The molecular data provided here further support this assertion: all the individuals of A. marplatensis and A. reynaudi appear together intermixed in a monophyletic group clearly distinct from the outgroup species A. incubans and A. verrucosa. We have also completed the description of A. marplatensis, adding more anatomical features based mainly on internal anatomy and cnidae.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acuña, F. H., 1993. Ecología poblacional de las principales especies de actiniarios (Cnidaria: Anthozoa) del intermareal marplatense y zonas adyacentes. Doctoral Thesis, (Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina.).
Acuña, F. H. & M. O. Zamponi, 1995. Feeding ecology of intertidal sea anemones (Cnidaria, Actiniaria): food sources and trophic parameters. Biociências 3: 73–84.
Acuña, F. H. & M. O. Zamponi, 1996. Trophic ecology of the intertidal sea anemones Phymactis clematis Dana, 1846; Aulactinia marplatensis (Zamponi, 1977) and A. reynaudi (Milne-Edwards, 1857) (Actiniaria: Actiniidae): relationships between sea anemones and their preys. Ciencias Marinas 22: 397–413.
Acuña, F. H. & M. O. Zamponi, 1997. The use of cnidocysts for ecological races identification from sea anemones populations (Anthozoa, Actiniidae). Iheringia Série Zoologia 82: 9–18.
Acuña, F. H. & M. O. Zamponi, 1998. Estructura poblacional de Aulactinia marplatensis (Zamponi, 1977) y A. reynaudi (Milne-Edwards, 1857) (Actiniaria: Actiniidae) en Argentina. Biociências 6: 13–33.
Amor, A., M. F. López Armengol, A. M. Iñiguez Rodríguez & L. P. Traversa, 1991. Intertidal endolithic fauna and it’s relationship to the mineralogical, physical and chemical characteristics of the substrate. Marine Biology 111: 271–280.
Carlgren, O., 1949. A survey of the Ptychodactiaria, Corallimorpharia and Actiniaria. Kungl Svenska Vetenskapsakadamiens Handlingar 1: 1–122.
Daly, M., 2004. Anatomy and Taxonomy of Three Species of Sea Anemones (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Actiniidae) from the Gulf of California, Including Isoaulactinia hespervolita Daly, n. sp. Pacific Science 58: 377–390.
Dunn, D. F., F. S. Chia & R. Levine, 1980. Nomenclature of Aulactinia (= Bunodactis), with description of Aulactinia incubans n. sp. (Coelenterata: Actiniaria), an internally brooding sea anemone from Puget Sound. Canadian Journal of Zoology 58: 2071–2080.
Edmands, S. & D. G. Fautin, 1991. Redescription of Aulactinia veratra n. comb. (= Cnidopus veratra) (Coelenterata: Actiniaria) from Australia. Records Western Australian Museum 15: 59–68.
England, K. W., 1987. Certain Actiniaria (Cnidaria, Anthozoa) from the Red Sea and tropical Indo-Pacific. Bulletin British Museum of Natural History 53: 205–292.
England, K. W., 1991. Nematocysts of sea anemones (Actiniaria, Ceriantharia and Corallimorpharia: Cnidaria): nomenclature. Hydrobiologia 216/217: 691–697.
Excoffon, A. C., 1993. Biología reproductiva de algunas especies de la tribu Thenaria (Cnidaria: Anthozoa) en el litoral marplatense. Doctoral Thesis, (Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina.).
Excoffon, A. C. & M. O. Zamponi, 1997. Una excepción al patrón reproductivo del género Aulactinia Verrill, 1864 (Cnidaria: Actiniaria). Biociências 5: 207–217.
Fautin, D. G., 1988. Importance of nematocysts to actinian taxonomy. In Hessinger D. A. & H. M. Lenhoff (eds), The Biology of Nematocysts. Academic Press, San Diego: 487–500.
Fautin, D. G. & F. S. Chia, 1986. Revision of sea anemone genus Epiactis (Coelenterata: Actiniaria) on the Pacific coast of North America, with descriptions of two new brooding species. Canadian Journal of Zoology 64: 1665–1674.
Fautin, D. G., 2006. Hexacorallians of the World. http://www.geoportal.kgs.ku.edu/hexacoral/anemone2/index.cfm.
Genzano, G. N., F. H. Acuña, A. C. Excoffon & C. D. Pérez, 1996. Cnidarios bentónicos de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Lista sistemática, distribución y estrategias de colonización. Actas de las VI Jornadas de Ciencias Naturales de La Pampa: 113–121.
Patronelli, D. L., E. Gonzalez Olivera & M. O. Zamponi, 2005. Influence of the intertidal environment on muscle activity in different species of sea anemones (Actiniaria). Animal Biology 55: 101–109.
Rodríguez, E. 2007. Taxonomía, biogeografia y algunos aspectos reproductivos de actiniarios y coralimorfarios (Cnidaria, Anthozoa) del mar de Weddell y península antártica. Doctoral Thesis (Universidad de Sevilla, España).
Swofford, D. L., 2003. PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and Other Methods). Version 4. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
Thompson, J. D., D. G. Higgins & T. J. Gibson, 1994. ClustalW: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Research 22: 4673–4680.
Thompson, J. D., T. J. Gibson, F. Plewniak, F. Jeanmougin & D. G. Higgins, 1997. The ClustalX windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucleic Acids Research 24: 4876–4882.
Zamponi, M. O., 1977. La anemonofauna de Mar del Plata y localidades vecinas. I. Las anémonas Boloceroidaria y Endomyaria (Coelenterata: Actiniaria). Neotrópica 23: 137–153.
Zamponi, M. O. & F. H. Acuña, 1991. Zoogeografía y algunos aspectos ecológicos de la fauna de anémonas de la Provincia Magallánica. Neotrópica 37: 95–105.
Zamponi, M. O. & F. H. Acuña, 1994. Una metodología para estudios cuantitativos de los cnidocistos (Actiniaria, Actiniidae). Iheringia Série Zoologia 76: 9–13.
Zamponi, M.O. & A. C. Excoffon, 1986. Algunos aspectos de la biología reproductiva de Bunodactis marplatensis Zamponi, 1977 (Actiniaria: Actiniidae). Spheniscus 4: 9–18.
Zamponi, M. O., M. J. C. Belém, E. Schlenz & F. H. Acuña, 1998. Distribution and some ecological aspects of Corallimorpharia and Actiniaria from shallow waters of the South American Atlantic Coasts. Physis 55: 3–45.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Marymegan Daly and Tamara M. McGovern for providing specimens/tissue samples. Graciela Facorro for assistance with the molecular work. Daniel Brown (INIDEP) and Laboratory of Histology (UNMdP) for microphotography and histology facilities, respectively. This work was partially funded by a grant to FHA (CONICET PIP 5504).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Handling editor: K. Martens
Fabián H. Acuña, Researcher of CONICET
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Acuña, F.H., Excoffon, A.C., McKinstry, S.R. et al. Characterization of Aulactinia (Actiniaria: Actiniidae) species from Mar del Plata (Argentina) using morphological and molecular data. Hydrobiologia 592, 249–256 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-007-0749-8
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-007-0749-8