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Carnivorous sponges from the Australian Bathyal and Abyssal zones collected during the RV Investigator 2017 Expedition
Abstract and Figures
This research presents 17 new species of carnivorous sponges from the family Cladorhizidae sampled at bathyal and abyssal depths off the east coast of Australia during the RV Investigator 2017 Abyss Expedition. The species are comprised of six genera: Abyssocladia escheri sp. nov., A. annae sp. nov., A. gliscofila sp. nov., Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) maxisigma sp. nov., Cladorhiza australis nov. sp., C. poritea sp. nov., C. investigator sp. nov., C. moniqueae sp. nov., C. pentaeiros sp. nov., Chondrocladia (Chondrocladia) freycinetensis sp. nov., Ch. (Ch.) callistemonex sp. nov., Ch. (Ch.) zygainadentonis sp. nov., Lycopodina nikitawimandi sp. nov., L. helios sp. nov., L. cassida sp. nov., L. brochidodroma sp. nov. and Euchelipluma claudochela sp. nov. Only three carnivorous species, A. desmophora, As. (As.) desmophora and C. (Meliiderma) tasmaniensis, have been recorded from Australia previously. This expedition also recovered two described species commonly recorded from the Southern Hemisphere Ch. (Ch.) clavata and L. calyx. This paper also redescribes two species from the South Pacific i.e. C. mirabilis and C. similis.
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... Seventeen new species of carnivorous sponges were recently described from bathyal to abyssal depths off Eastern Australia (Ekins, Erpenbeck & Hooper 2020), on an expedition extending from the Coral Sea to the seamounts south of Tasmania (O'Hara et al. 2020a). These were in the genera Abyssocladia Lévi, 1964, Asbestopluma Topsent, 1901, Chondrocladia Thomson, 1873, Cladorhiza Sars, 1872, Lycopodina Lundbeck, 1905and Euchelipluma Topsent, 1909, and also included the redescriptions of two species found in Australian waters for the first time i.e. ...
... Species also included: Axoniderma mirabilis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), A. australis (Ekins, Erpenbeck & Hooper, 2020), A. corona (Lehnert, watling & Stone, 2005), A. hubbsi (Lundsten, Reiswig & Austin, 2017), A. kensmithi (Lundsten, Reiswig & Austin, 2017), A. longipinna (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), A. mexicana (Lundsten, Reiswig & Austin, 2017), A. poritea (Ekins, Erpenbeck & Hooper, 2020) and A. similis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886 Definition: Cladorhizidae with anchorate anisochelae and a pinnate body shape, i.e. filaments at right angle to a straight stem. etymology: Nullus L. null, Arbor L. trees. ...
... Species also included: Axoniderma mirabilis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), A. australis (Ekins, Erpenbeck & Hooper, 2020), A. corona (Lehnert, watling & Stone, 2005), A. hubbsi (Lundsten, Reiswig & Austin, 2017), A. kensmithi (Lundsten, Reiswig & Austin, 2017), A. longipinna (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), A. mexicana (Lundsten, Reiswig & Austin, 2017), A. poritea (Ekins, Erpenbeck & Hooper, 2020) and A. similis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886 Definition: Cladorhizidae with anchorate anisochelae and a pinnate body shape, i.e. filaments at right angle to a straight stem. etymology: Nullus L. null, Arbor L. trees. ...
This research presents three new species of carnivorous sponges from the family Cladorhizidae from the Great Australian Bight, South Australia. This research also shows a clear separation within the species currently known as Cladorhiza into those with an arbuscular or tree-like morphology from the Atlantic, to those of differing morphologies and propose three new genera, i.e. Bathytentacular gen. nov., Abyssosdiskos gen. nov. and Nullarbora gen. nov. and the resurrection of an old genus Axoniderma. nov. The three new species described in this paper are Nullarbora heptaxia sp. nov., Abyssocladia oxyasters sp. nov. and Lycopodina hystrix sp. nov. A new species in the family Guitarridae, Guitarra davidconryi sp. nov., a family closely related to the carnivorous sponges is also described in this paper. These new species are the first recorded carnivorous species from South Australia and increase the number of species recorded from around Australia to 25.
... However, recent advancements in technology have enabled greater exploration of these deep-sea habitats resulting in the recent escalation in the discovery of a much higher biodiversity than previously thought, leading new expeditions to discover many undescribed species -23 of which were published in 2020 from Australasian waters alone (e.g. Ekins et al. 2020aEkins et al. , 2020bVacelet 2020). ...
... A carnivorous sponge Abyssocladia desmophora (Hooper & Lévi, 1989) was discovered during the CIDARIS expeditions on the edge of the Australian continental shelf off Queensland at ~1200 m depth. More recently, another carnivorous sponge was found from within the Australian EEZ of the Coral Sea, Chondrocladia (Chondrocladia) zygainadentonis Ekins et al., 2020a, from the edge of the continental shelf at ~1800 m depth. Other carnivorous species recorded from elsewhere in the Coral Sea include Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) biserialis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), from New Caledonia, Cladorhiza similis Ridley & Dendy, 1886, Cladorhiza schistochela Lévi, 1993 pulvinata Lévi 1993, C.(C.) scolionema Lévi, 1993 and most recently Abyssocladia kanaconi Vacelet, 2020, A. microstrongylata Vacelet, 2020and A. mucronata Vacelet, 2020. ...
... Other carnivorous species recorded from elsewhere in the Coral Sea include Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) biserialis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), from New Caledonia, Cladorhiza similis Ridley & Dendy, 1886, Cladorhiza schistochela Lévi, 1993 pulvinata Lévi 1993, C.(C.) scolionema Lévi, 1993 and most recently Abyssocladia kanaconi Vacelet, 2020, A. microstrongylata Vacelet, 2020and A. mucronata Vacelet, 2020. For a list of descriptions including those from the east coast of Australia and the Pacific see Ekins et al. (2020a). ...
A new species of carnivorous sponge, Lycopodina coralseaensis sp. nov., family Cladorhizidae, is described from the Louisiade Plateau, Coral Sea, off the east coast of Australia at bathyal depths of ~2000 m, collected during the RV Investigator 2019 voyage. The new species differs from other Lycopodina with stipitate morphology by lacking forceps microscleres, similar to L. nikitawimandi Ekins et al., 2020a but differing in having only a very small single size class of palmate anisochelae, and most importantly by having a third category of mycalostyle echinating the stem and basal holdfast. This new species is the sixth Lycopodina recently described as new from the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (L. nikitawimandi, L. helios, L. cassida, L. brochidodroma and L. hystrix), bringing the total number of carnivorous sponges known so far from Australia to 26.
... Prior to 2017, only two annelid species were described from the region below 2000 m, consequently this work vastly increases our knowledge of deepwater annelids and provides critical baseline data on an important group of benthic invertebrates from a virtually unknown region of the world's ocean. This is important as comprehensive taxonomically-consistent deep-water datasets that cover large areas in Australia are rare (O'Hara 2008; Alderslade et al. 2014;Althaus et al. 2017;MacIntosh et al. 2018;Williams et al. 2018;Farrelly and Ahyong 2019;Ekins et al. 2020;O'Hara et al. 2020a, b, c), in particular for smaller benthic invertebrates (Poore et al. 2015), which highlights the uniqueness of this dataset. ...
In Australia, the deep-water (bathyal and abyssal) benthic invertebrate fauna is poorly known in comparison with that of shallow (subtidal and shelf) habitats. Benthic fauna from the deep eastern Australian margin was sampled systematically for the first time during 2017 RV ‘Investigator’ voyage ‘Sampling the Abyss’. Box core, Brenke sledge, and beam trawl samples were collected at one-degree intervals from Tasmania, 42°S, to southern Queensland, 24°S, from 900 to 4800 m depth. Annelids collected were identified by taxonomic experts on individual families around the world. A complete list of all identified species is presented, accompanied with brief morphological diagnoses, taxonomic remarks, and colour images. A total of more than 6000 annelid specimens consisting of 50 families (47 Polychaeta, one Echiura, two Sipuncula) and 214 species were recovered. Twenty-seven species were given valid names, 45 were assigned the qualifier cf., 87 the qualifier sp., and 55 species were considered new to science. Geographical ranges of 16 morphospecies extended along the eastern Australian margin to the Great Australian Bight, South Australia; however, these ranges need to be confirmed with genetic data. This work providing critical baseline biodiversity data on an important group of benthic invertebrates from a virtually unknown region of the world’s ocean will act as a springboard for future taxonomic and biogeographic studies in the area.
... Abyssocladia, Asbestopluma, Chondrocladia, Cladorhiza, Lycopodina and Euchelipluma (Ekins et al. 2020). Also remarkable is that only two previously well-known carnivorous species were collected i.e. ...
Background
Our knowledge of the benthic fauna at lower bathyal to abyssal (LBA, > 2000 m) depths off Eastern Australia was very limited with only a few samples having been collected from these habitats over the last 150 years. In May–June 2017, the IN2017_V03 expedition of the RV Investigator sampled LBA benthic communities along the lower slope and abyss of Australia’s eastern margin from off mid-Tasmania (42°S) to the Coral Sea (23°S), with particular emphasis on describing and analysing patterns of biodiversity that occur within a newly declared network of offshore marine parks.
Methods
The study design was to deploy a 4 m (metal) beam trawl and Brenke sled to collect samples on soft sediment substrata at the target seafloor depths of 2500 and 4000 m at every 1.5 degrees of latitude along the western boundary of the Tasman Sea from 42° to 23°S, traversing seven Australian Marine Parks.
Results
The biological sampling included 35 beam trawls, 28 Brenke sleds, 8 box cores, 20 surface meso-zooplankton tows, and 7 Deep Towed Camera transects. In total, 25,710 specimens were identified to 1084 taxonomic entities, including 847 species-level, 144 genus-level and 69 family-level and 24 higher-level taxa. Of the species-level taxa, only 457 were assigned species-level taxonomic names, which implies that up to 58% of the collected fauna is undescribed. In addition, the ranges of numerous species have been extended to include the western Tasman Sea.
Conclusions
The lower bathyal and abyssal fauna of soft sediment seafloors off eastern Australia has been systematically surveyed for the first time. The resultant collections will provide the foundation for much future ecological, biogeographical, phylogenetic and taxonomic research.
Carnivorous sponges belonging to family Cladorhizidae (Porifera, Demospongiae, Poecilosclerida) are unique within phylum Porifera due to their ability to capture and envelop small prey. While other sponges use an aquiferous system to filter water, the aquiferous system of the cladorhizids is partially reduced or completely absent. Carnivorous sponges can be found worldwide at all depths, but are more common in the deep sea, where oligotrophic conditions containing less suspended particles may favor a carnivorous feeding strategy. Here, we provide formal descriptions of eight cladorhizid sponge species from 1229 to 5813 m depth collected as part of the NOAA 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas with the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer (EX1605) during the investigation of the bathyal and abyssal seafloor off the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam: the harp sponge Chondrocladia (Symmetrocladia) lyra, Chondrocladia (Chondrocladia) coronata sp. nov., Lycopodina subtile sp. nov., Abyssocladia fryerae sp. nov., Abyssocladia kellyae sp. nov., Abyssocladia marianensis sp. nov., Abyssocladia stegosaurensis sp. nov., and Abyssocladia villosa sp. nov. We also provide a phylogenetic analysis showing the systematic position of the described species. Our results show that the deep-sea seafloor off the Mariana Islands contains a diverse and previously virtually unknown cladorhizid fauna. The examined species display similarities with species from other parts of the Pacific, and add considerably to the available information for the genus Abyssocladia. The high number of new species is consistent with other recent publications from the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and shows that despite recent sampling efforts, the cladorhizid fauna of these areas remains very poorly investigated. Additional sampling effort will in all probability yield both additional species and a better understanding of the biogeographical distribution of already known cladorhizids.
The WPD, the World Database of all Recent sponges ever described, is part of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), a global initiative to arrive at a register of all marine organisms. The WPD is complementary to the Systema Porifera (editors Hooper & Van Soest, 2002), the two volume comprehensive classification of all sponge taxa above the species level. It incorporates recent and future amendments of the sponge classification, including the recently proposed revision of Morrow & Cárdenas (2015).
Sponges from the Kara Sea (Arctic Russia) collected by the Dutch Polar Expedition 1882-83 are identified and discussed. The expedition experienced an unfortunate course of events, as the research vessel RV ’Varna’ was ice-bound and eventually got crushed by ice, leaving the crew and the scientists stranded on an ice floe drifting around in the Kara Sea. The scientists still managed to do many observations and made collections of bottom animals lowering collecting gear through a hole in the ice. After being enclosed for more than a year in the ice, the men travelled in small boats and sledges to the mainland of Russia and from there returned home. The zoological collections were brought to Copenhagen by the Danish research vessel RV ‘Dijmphna’, from where the material was picked up by the Dutch scientists. Most animal groups were subsequently discussed in a series of papers published in the Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde volume 14 (1887). The sponges of the Dutch Polar Expedition were in a rather bad condition when they arrived in Amsterdam and possibly for that reason were largely ignored. They nevertheless appear to be interesting and are here presented as a belated contribution to the 1887 issue, including the description of a species new to science, Lycopodina ruijsi sp. nov. The results are discussed in the framework of our present knowledge of the sponge fauna of the Kara Sea. In Appendix ten already known species are briefly described and SEM images of their spicules provided as a contribution to Kara Sea sponge morphology
Carnivorous feeding among the Cladorhizidae (Porifera, Demospongiae, Poecilosclerida) was first documented in 1995. Since that time, 161 species have been described and are currently recognized in 9 genera. Cladorhiza is the most speciose genus with a global, deep-water distribution of 41 species. Here we describe three new Cladorhiza species of ‘crinorhiza’ form from the Northeast Pacific Ocean off California, USA, and the Gulf of California, Mexico, from depths of 2472–4100m. In total, 11 specimens were collected between 1969 and 2015. Video recordings from remotely operated vehicles yield additional information on habitat type, geographic distribution, and abundance for some of these species.
Family Cladorhizidae, comprising the carnivorous sponges, represents a unique innovation within the phylum Porifera. Rather than filter feeding, carnivorous sponges have developed the ability to passively capture small invertebrates such as crustaceans using filaments or other appendages, coupled with an adhesive surface and the ability of sponge cells to migrate to and envelop prey items. Cladorhizids are most commonly deep-sea species and are found worldwide, with around 150 species currently described. The boreal Atlantic and neighbouring Arctic areas have a species-rich cladorhizid fauna, including many of the first cladorhizids described from early marine biological investigations. While a number of records exist for parts of these areas, other areas, such as the North-west Atlantic, are less well known, and species descriptions are scattered and in many cases lacking necessary information. Using a large set of specimens from newly collected material and multiple museum collections, and integrating this with previously published records from the area, we provide an overview of the cladorhizid fauna of the boreal Atlantic and adjoining Arctic Oceans. In all, we provide updated descriptions of 25 species, of which four, Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) ruetzleri sp. nov., Cladorhiza kenchingtonae sp. nov., Lycopodina novangliae sp. nov. and L. tendali sp. nov., are previously undescribed. We also provide an overview of the known distribution and depth ranges of each species as well as a key for identification to species level. Finally, we provide some general discussion on the boreo-Atlantic and Arctic cladorhizid fauna and its relationship to neighbouring areas.
Two new species of Chondrocladia are described from the deep Pacific, off New Zealand and South Australia. These presumably carnivorous sponges are characterized by the presence of a sheath of special spicules along the stalk, for which the new term ‘trochirhabd’ is coined. Similar spicules were known from fossil strata of the Early Jurassic, suggesting that Cladorhizidae were already present in the Mesozoic. The arrangement of the trochirhabds along the stalk is similar to that described in the genus Meliiderma, which has been synonymized with Chondrocladia. We propose here the revival of Meliiderma as a subgenus of Chondrocladia, for Chondrocladia stipitata Ridley & Dendy, 1887, from the subantarctic Indian Ocean, C. occulta (Lehnert et al., 2006), described from the North Pacific as a species of Latrunculia, and for C. turbiformis sp.nov. and C. tasmaniensis sp.nov. from New Zealand’s Chatham Rise and several Tasmanian seamounts, respectively, described herein.
A new sponge collected from 2,024 m depth on the Vance Seamount in the north-east Pacific by the ROV ‘Tiburon’ is described in the family Cladorhizidae as a new genus and new species, Lollipocladia tiburoni. The sponge, 112 mm in total height, is in the shape of a pedunculate disc, like several cladorhizid sponges of the genera Abyssocladia and Neocladia. It differs from these genera and from all carnivorous poecilosclerids by its microsclere complement, consisting of palmate isochelae, sigmancistras, and strongly curved anchorate isochelae superficially resembling those of Neocladia. A re-examination of the holotype of Neocladia indicates that it is a valid genus different from Chondrocladia.
This study reviews the taxonomy and biogeography of carnivorous sponges (family Cladorhizidae) in the
Southern Ocean. Specimens were collected from seamounts in the Drake Passage by dredging and trawling and
biogeographical information from other sources was compiled and reviewed. Eight new species of carnivorous sponges are described: Abyssocladia leverhulmei, sp. nov., Asbestopluma (Asbestopluma) sarsensis, sp. nov., A. (A.) gemmae, sp. nov., A. (A.) rhaphidiophorus, sp. nov., Asbestopluma (Helophloeina) keraia, sp. nov., Chondrocladia (Chondrocladia) saffronae, sp. nov., Cladorhiza scanlonae, sp. nov. and Lycopodina drakensis, sp. nov. Specimens of three previously described species, L. callithrix, L. calyx and A. (A.) bitrichela, were also found. These new records increase the number of known carnivorous sponge species in the Southern Ocean by more than a third. We demonstrate that the Cladorhizidae is the
second most species-rich family of Demospongiae in the Southern Ocean and many of its species are highly endemic, with 70% found only in this region. Southern Ocean species represent close to 20% of all known carnivorous sponges. This study highlights the importance of seamount and bathyal benthic habitats for supporting the rich and endemic carnivorous sponge fauna of the Southern Ocean