Abstract
Thoosa calpulli and T. mismalolli are two of the most abundant excavating sponges in reefs in the Mexican Pacific Ocean. These species release large numbers of larvae into the water column, which are apparently capable of dispersing long distances. However, determining important aspects of larval ecology (distribution, dispersal pattern, dynamics, etc.) is challenging due to the lack of appropriate taxonomical characters for larval ID in sponges. This work describes the morphology of the planktonic larvae of these two sympatric species. Different subtle morphological characteristics associated with body size and spicule ornamentation of the monaxonic discs were considered to be relevant to distinguish between both species, which allowed an easy process for taxonomical identification. A partial sequence of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase c subunit 1 (cox1) of larvae collected directly from the plankton and adults was amplified to corroborate the validity of the morphological features.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Arturo Núñez, Mateo Amillano, Armando Chávez and Humberto Ovalle for assistance in field sampling. We are grateful to Selene María Abad Rosales and Yolanda Hornelas Orozco for technical assistance and to Clara Ramirez for her help in the search for scientific literature. We also thank SAGARPA for collecting permits (DGOPA.02476.220306.0985 and DGOPA.06648.140807.3121). Finally we want to thank CONACYT SEP-2003-C02-42550 and CONACYT SEP 2008 (102239) for the financial support granted to Jose Luis Carballo.
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Communicated by A. Schmidt-Rhaesa.
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Bautista-Guerrero, E., Carballo, J.L., Aguilar-Camacho, J.M. et al. Molecular and morphological differentiation of sympatric larvae of coral excavating sponges of genus Thoosa . Zoomorphology 135, 159–165 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-016-0305-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-016-0305-z