Brett C. Gonzalez

• PhD. Biology
• Researcher at The University of Western Australia

Species of Placobdella have been the frequent subject of revisionary and alpha-taxonomy in the past 2 decades. Recent molecular analyses introduced uncertainty about the taxonomic status of several broadly distributed and morphologically variable Placobdella species, including Placobdella picta (Verrill 1872), compounded by incomplete original desc...

Subterranean estuaries are coastal ecosystems characterized by vertically stratified groundwater. The biota within these ecosystems is relatively understudied due to the inherent difficulty of accessing such extreme environments. The fauna inhabiting these ecosystems is considered vulnerable to extinction, and the presence of cryptic species has ma...

Groundwater ecosystems are inhabited by unique assemblages of animals, often with restricted distributions and highly specialized traits. Those assemblages sustain ecosystem functioning and contribute to important ecosystem services. Knowledge of the species occurring in those habitats and the main ecological and historical drivers for their distri...

Two new species of Hesionidae, Parahesione pulvinata sp. nov. and Parahesione apiculata sp. nov. are described based on materials collected at tidal flats in Okinawa (Japan) from burrows of the ghost shrimps Neocallichirus jousseaumei and Glypturus armatus. The two new species are characterized by having eight enlarged cirri, dorsal cirrophores wit...

Parahololepidella Pettibone, 1969 is a polynoid genus commensal with the antipatharian genus Tanacetipathes Opresko, 2001. These scale worms are elongate with numerous segments and small elytra. To date, the only other known polynoid associated with Tanacetipathes is Antipathipolyeunoa Pettibone, 1991. By reexamining the holotype of Antipathipolyeu...

Polynoidae is the most diverse radiation of Aphroditiformia and one of the most successful groups of all Annelida in terms of diversity and habitats colonized. With such an unmatched diversity, phylogenetic investigations have struggled to understand their evolutionary relationships. Previous phylogenetic analyses have slowly increased taxon sampli...

The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico is a carbonate platform well-known for extensive karst networks of densely stratified aquifer ecosystems. This aquifer supports diverse anchialine fauna, including species of the globally distributed anchialine shrimp genus Typhlatya (Atyidae). Four species (T. campecheae, T. pearsei, T. dzilamensis and T. mitchelli) a...

Annelida: Pleistoannelida, Errantia II, Phyllodocida. Section 7.13.1.2

Annelids are predominantly found along with the seafloor, but over time have colonized a vast diversity of habitats, such as the water column, where different modes of locomotion are necessary. Yet, little is known about their potential muscular adaptation to the continuous swimming behaviour required in the water column. The musculature and motili...

The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico is a carbonate platform well-known for extensive karst networks of densely stratified aquifer ecosystems. This aquifer supports diverse anchialine fauna, including species of the globally distributed atyid shrimp genus Typhlatya. Four species (T. campecheae, T. pearsei, T. dzilamensis and T. mitchelli) are endemic to t...

Holopelagic animals were long assumed to have widespread geographic distributions due to the failure to recognize hydrographic species' barriers in the open ocean. As molecular genetic tools are more commonly used to study the ocean's inhabitants, diversity is found to be substantially higher than when inferred from morphological taxonomies alone....

A new genus and species of Nerillidae, Nipponerilla irabuensis gen. nov., sp. nov., is described from an anchialine cave in Shimoji Island, west of Irabu Island (Miyako Islands, Southwestern Japan). Its morphology was examined with light, scan- ning electron, and confocal laser scanning microscopy. This new species, along with two putative new cave...

Remipedia is a stygobitic group commonly associated with coastal anchialine caves. This class consists of 12 genera, ten of which are found within the Lucayan Archipelago. Herein, we describe a new species within the genus Godzillius from Conch Sound Blue Hole, North Andros Island, Bahamas. Godzillius louriei sp. nov. is the third known remipede ob...

Across Annelida, accessing the water column drives morphological and lifestyle modifications-yet in the primarily "benthic" scale worms, the ecological significance of swimming has largely been ignored. We investigated genetic, morphological and behavioural adaptations associated with swimming across Polynoidae, using mitogenomics and comparative m...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Members of the following marine annelid families are found almost exclusively in the interstitial environment and are highly adapted to move between sand grains, relying mostly on ciliary locomotion: Apharyngtidae n. fam., Dinophilidae, Diurodrilidae, Nerillidae, Lobatocerebridae, Parergodrilidae, Polygordiidae, Protodrilidae, Protodriloididae, Psa...

ECOLOGICAL TRAITS: Anchialine caves contain bodies of saline or brackish waters with subterranean connections to the sea. Since virtually all anchialine biota is marine in origin, these caves have a larger and more diverse species pool than underground freshwaters. The trophic network is truncated and dominated by heterotrophs (scavenging and filte...

Lying at the southernmost point of the Lucayan Archipelago, the Turks and Caicos Islands are amongst the better studied localities for anchialine cave biodiversity. For nearly five decades, novel invertebrate fauna, comprised primarily of crustaceans, have been collected from these tidally influenced pools – but new findings are always on the horiz...

DNA barcoding and population genetic studies have revealed an unforeseen hidden diversity of cryptic species among microscopic marine benthos, otherwise exhibiting highly similar and simple morphologies. This has led to a paradigm shift, rejecting cosmopolitism of marine meiofauna until genetically proven and challenging the “Everything is Everywhe...

This poster summarizes the main results found regarding the meiofauna of caves in the western zone of Cuba. The community of meiofauna studied is composed of few individuals and has a low divergence of taxa. The nematodes showed a set of biological traits that suggest adaptations to a medium where food is scarce.

The potential of subterranean environments as models to address major evolutionary and ecological questions has been highlighted in the literature. They represent partially isolated, discrete units offering several replicates of the same evolutionary processes. Species occurrence data of these environments is abundant, although sparse in the litera...

Anchialine caves have revealed a variety of highly adapted animals including several records of nerillid annelids. However, only one stygobitic lineage, Speleonerilla nom. nov. (previously known as Longipalpa), seems obligate to this environment. We here provide new information on this lineage including the description of three new species, two new...

Aphroditiformia represents one of the most successful radiations of annelids, and is therefore an interesting model to understand morphological and functional evolution. Previous phylogenetic analyses yielded most families as monophyletic but excluded anchialine and interstitial species while failing to recover relationships within Sigalionidae. He...

We describe two new species of the annelid genus Trilobodrilus Remane, 1925 (Dinophilidae Verill, 1892) from an intertidal and a subtidal location in San Diego, California. These two species show morphological and molecular divergences between each other and the previously described, geographically distant species. Intertidal T. windansea sp. nov....

This study addresses whether cave dwelling annelids exhibited similar reductive and constructive traits equally as strong as those of arthropods and vertebrates inhabiting caves. Known as troglomorphism, these adaptations bring about striking morphologies across invertebrates and vertebrates from both aquatic and terrestrial cave habitats , and inc...

The diversity and ecology of meiofauna in caves is largely unknown. Therefore, we studied one anchialine and five freshwater caves in November 2014 and January 2016 in western Cuba. We recorded 10 invertebrate taxa with the most abundant being: Nematoda, Ostracoda, Acari and Copepoda. The meiofauna communities in the caves were relatively impoveris...

The island of Lanzarote is situated in the northern end of the Canary Islands and hosts one of the most diverse volcanic anchialine ecosystems in the world. Best known for Túnel de la Atlántida, Lanzarote has a diverse set of anchialine habitats, including lakes, pools, and even wells that penetrate into the subterranean aquifer. The porous nature...

Pisione is a scaleless group of small scale worms inhabiting sandy bottoms in shallow marine waters. This group was once considered rare, but now 45 described species can be characterized, among others, by their paired, segmental copulatory organs (one to multiple external pairs), which display a complexity of various accessory structures. The evol...

La Corona lava tube is one of the most remarkable anchialine caves in the world. Already to the original settlers of Lanzarote it had a great significance, continuing nowadays, being visited by thousands of people from all over the world each year. During the last 125 years, more than 50 scientists have investigated this cave, producing numerous te...

El Tubo Volcánico de La Corona es una de las cuevas anquialinas más importantes del mundo. Durante los últimos 125 años, más de 50 científicos han investigado la Cueva escribiendo numerosas publicaciones científicas sobre su geología, fauna y ecología, accesibles dentro de la comunidad científica. En paralelo, La Corona ha tenido una gran importanc...

Pisionidens Aiyar & Alikuhni, 1943 is a genus of small scale-less annelids formerly belonging to the family 'Pisionidae', now synonymized with the scale worm family Sigalionidae. A new species from Akumal, México, Pisionidens ixazaluo-hae n. sp., is herein described, including a genetic barcode, and diagnosed by parapodia from segment 8, males havi...

Microfibres are widespread contaminants in marine environments across the globe. Detecting in situ ingestion of microfibres by small marine organisms is necessary to understand their potential accumulation in marine food webs and their role in marine pollution. We have examined the gut contents of meiofauna from six sandy beaches in the Atlantic Oc...

A new species of Teinostoma (Tornidae) is described from an under-investigated section of the anchialine cave system Cenote Crustacea, situated on the northeastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Teinostoma brankovitsi n. sp. is the first anchialine gastropod reported from the Yucatán Peninsula and the first record of the family from an anchialine...

Colonization and adaptation of scale worms to interstitial and anchialine habitats (Aphroditiformia, Annelida) Scale worms (Aphroditiformia) are one of the most diverse families of annelids (<1200) found in all marine habitats including many extremes such as anchialine caves, the interstitial environment, whale falls, and hydrothermal vents. The wi...

We describe a new species of Godzillius, a remipede belonging to Godzilliidae, discovered from Dan's Cave and Ralph's Sink, two inland anchialine blue holes on Abaco Island, Bahamas. Godzillius fuchsi n. sp. is the second species assigned to this genus. Collected adult specimens have a relatively robust body, with lengths measuring 34 mm and up to...

Recent cave diving explorations in Cenote Crustacea have led to discoveries of several undescribed annelids inhabiting sediments that lie within the halocline and marine layers. Taxonomic and genetic evaluations support their placement within Acrocirridae and Flabelligeridae, establishing new records from anchialine systems for these families. This...

A new species of Remipedia (Crustacea) is described from a recently discovered section of the anchialine cave system Cenote Crustacea, situated on the northeastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Speleonectes fuchscockburni n. sp. is the second remipede species from the Caribbean coast of Mexico. Adult specimens are relatively small and slender, wi...

A new species of Triacanthoneus Anker, 2010 is described from an anchialine cave near Akumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Triacanthoneus akumalensis sp. nov., is the fourth species in the genus and can be distinguished from the previously de-scribed species by the position of the sharp lateral teeth on the carapace, the length and shape of the rostrum, t...

Inland blue holes of the Bahamas are anchialine ecosystems with distinct fresh and salt water layers, and anoxic or microoxic conditions at depth. Scientific cave diving and geomicrobiology exploration of blue holes are providing a first glimpse of the geochemistry and microbial life in these vertically stratified karst features. We hypothesized th...