Cladorhiza poritea Ekins & Erpenbeck & Hooper 2020, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Ekins, Merrick
name: Erpenbeck, Dirk
name: Hooper, John N. A.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Demospongiae
Poecilosclerida
Cladorhizidae
Cladorhiza
Cladorhiza poritea

description: Cladorhiza poritea sp. nov.
Figures 9 & 10, Tables 5 & 7
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 1137946D-9779-49F1-A6E8-78DD9F4C85C3
Material Examined: Holotype: QM G337401, off Fraser Island, Station 109, Queensland, Australia, 25 o 13’15.6”– 25° 15’10.8” S, 154 o 9’50.4– 154° 11’ 31.2” E, 4006– 4005 m, Beam Trawl, Coll. Merrick Ekins on RV Investigator, Cruise IN2017_ V03, Sample 109-126.1, 11/vi/2017.
Paratypes: QM G337544 same collection details as the holotype, Sample 109–126; QM G337437 off Freycinet Peninsula, Station 6, Tasmania, Australia, 41° 37’ 32.0”– 41° 41’ 21.2” S, 149° 33’ 5.4”– 149° 35’ 3.5” E, 4022–4052 m, Beam Trawl, Coll. Merrick Ekins on RV Investigator, Cruise IN2017_ V03, Sample 6-158.1, 18/v/2017.
Comparative Material: Cladorhiza mirabilis (Ridley & Dendy, 1886), type of Axoniderma mirabile, BMNH 1887.5.2.141 and BMNH 1891.10.3.49 (see below).
Etymology: This species is named for the shape of its pseudoamphiasters, which when viewed from above, resemble the shape of the corallites in the scleractinian Porites.
Distribution: This species is currently known only from the East Coast of Australia, at abyssal depth.
Description:
Growth form: An erect, unbranched, pedunculate ‘crinorhizoid’, parasol-shaped sponge with long filaments extending outwards and downwards from the body at an angle of between 15 and 45 degrees (Figure 9 K–M). In the holotype the filaments are up to 30 mm long and 0.5 mm in width. The body of the sponge is 13 mm across the base. The stem of the sponge is currently 37 mm long, but is broken so the total length is unknown, as are the nature of the basal attachment structures. The stem is 1.1 mm thick and lacks any other structures. The top of the sponge is an acuminate papillate shape, tapering to a point. The paratype G337544 is in slightly worse condition with many of the filaments broken, and the endosome around the apices removed revealing the core of the vertical axis of styles protruding directly up from the stem through the sponge body. This paratype has a similar parasol, with the main body 10 mm across base and with 20 mm long processes. The stem of this paratype is even more damaged than the holotype and is 11.6 mm long x 1.5 mm wide. The paratype QM G337437 is a juvenile, with a stem of 1 mm in width and 50 mm in length, whilst the double conical body is 6 mm in diameter and the almost horizontal filaments are only 10 mm in length. None of the specimens had a basal attachment intact.
Colour: The sponges are cream on deck and in ethanol.
Ectosomal skeleton: The ectosomal skeleton is a thin membrane containing the anisochelae and the pseudoamphiasters (Figure 10 A–F), which is tightly bound to a sheath like layer of styles (Figure 10 D, F). On the body of the sponge the pseudoamphiasters are on the external surface and the anisochelae are underneath (Figure 10 B). On the stem the pseudoamphiasters are also on the outside (Figure 10 C). In contrast, on the filaments, the anisochelae are on the external surface and the pseudoamphiasters are underneath (Figure 10 E)
Endosomal skeleton: The endosomal skeleton consists of the mycalostyles in a single concentrated longitudinal bundle. In both the stem and the filaments this central bundle is surrounded by a sheath including all three styles (Figures 10 D and 10 F respectively). The body of the sponge consists of the individual bundles forming the filaments radiating from the body axis (Figure 10 A, 9 J).
Megascleres: Styles are in three size groups with the largest two sizes are nearly oxeote and have their greatest width at the central and both ends tapering considerably (Figure 9 D–I). The smallest styles are often slightly curvaceous. The large mycalostyles mainly occur in the axis of the stem and filaments (Table 7). The middle and smaller size styles are mainly in the surrounding sheaths (Figure 10 D, F).
Microscleres: ‘Unguiferate’ anchorate anisochelae are tridentate apically and tridentate basally (Figure 9 A). Pseudoamphiasters are asymmetrical, with 4–7 alae on each end (Figure 9 B, C, Table 7).
Molecular data: We were unable to compare our material of C. poritea sp. nov. to C. hubbsi as the holotype (Scripps P675, Acc. No. 1969.003,) of the latter was fixed in formalin. Nor were we able to extract DNA from the ancient lectotype of C. mirabilis, and Koltun’s (1970) specimen from the North Pacific was inaccessible. The 28S sequences of QM G337401, G337437 and G337544 are provided in the Sponge Barcoding Database under accession numbers SBD#2312, 2313 and 2315 and the molecular difference to other congenerics displayed in Figure 3.
Remarks: Of the four parasol-shaped species of Cladorhiza bearing pseudoamphiasters (C. mirabilis, C. hubbsi, C. mexicana, and the present species), C. mexicana and C. poritea sp. nov. are the only two species in which their pseudoamphiasters are asymmetrical. However, in the case of C. poritea sp. nov., this asymmetry is due to the possession of 4–7 alae on the apical end and only 3 alae on the basal end, with all alae of approximately similar dimension. Conversely, pseudoamphiasters of C. mexicana have 5 alae each end, but alae are slightly longer on the apical than the basal end, and the species also has sigmancistras in addition to the usual Cladorhiza unguiferate anisochelae (Lundsten et al. 2017).
Cladorhiza poritea sp. nov. differs from C. mirabilis morphologically by having an acuminate tip, by not having the spicular processes protruding through the papilla, and having a much larger base of the parasol (excluding filaments). It differs most substantially by the difference in size of the pseudoamphiasters (Table 5). This new species has a similar shallow conical angle of filaments to C. mirabilis which is very different from the almost vertical orientation of C. hubbsi. It also differs from C. hubbsi by having the acuminate tip to the parasol, rather than the flattened apex, and lacking the ovoid posterior swelling. The filaments of the current specimens range from 5 to 30 mm and are most likely significantly longer, but were damaged during collection; these are slightly smaller than those of C. hubbsi. This new species lacks the four different sizes of styles, and has styles smaller than those found in C. hubbsi. In addition this species lacks the sigmancistras of C. hubbsi. This species differs from C. australis sp. nov. in lacking the larger ‘cleistochelate’ anisochelae but share similar unguiferate anisochelae of similar dimension and morphology.
description: Published as part of Ekins, Merrick, Erpenbeck, Dirk & Hooper, John N. A., 2020, Carnivorous sponges from the Australian Bathyal and Abyssal zones collected during the RV Investigator 2017 Expedition, pp. 1-159 in Zootaxa 4774 (1) on pages 72-73, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4774.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3825140