Clathrina rowi Voigt et al. 2017
Creators: name: Van, Rob W. M.
name: De, Nicole J.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Calcarea
Clathrinida
Clathrinidae
Clathrina
Clathrina rowi

description: Clathrina rowi Voigt et al., 2017
Figures 16a–c, 17a–c
Clathrina rowi Voigt et al., 2017: 14, fig. 8.
Material examined. RMNH Por. 10002, Saudi Arabia, Jeddah, near Thuwal, Tahlah, 22.25725°N 38.880917°E, scuba, coll. N.J. de Voogd, field nr. THU14/JED209, 13 November 2014; ZMA Por. 13446, Israel, Gulf of Aqaba, North Pinnacle, in cave, depth 9 m, scuba, coll. M. Wunsch, field nr. AQ52, 4 July 1998.
Description. The RMNH Por. 10002 specimen in situ (Fig. 16a) is an overall loose mass of intermediate-sized tubuli, provided with several water-collecting tubes ending in oscules. Cormus anastomosed in places to densely connected smaller tubes. Individual tubes 0.4–2 mm in diameter. Color pale beige to dirty white, semi-transparent. Preserved specimen massive due to compression of tubules during preservation and manipulation in transport, 4.5 x 3 cm in lateral expansion, about 1 cm thick, dirty white in color. The ZMA Por. 13446 specimen (Fig. 17a) from Aqaba is small. It has a conical, transparent-white cormus with faint purple tinge, consisting of loosely, occasionally more tightly, anastomosed tubules, leading to a prominent single water-collecting tube ending in a wide oscule.
Aquiferous system. Asconoid.
Skeleton. (Figs 16b, 17b) Tubuli walls with one to two spicule layers, rather dense in preserved condition.
Spicules. (Figs 16c, 17c) Triactines only, neither specimen contained clearly identifiable trichoxeas as reported for some specimens in the type series.
Triactines with thin cylindroconical actines, endings mucronate to shortly pointed, occasionally slightly sagittal, size range limited, in RMNH Por. 10002 it is 68– 124 –151 x 7.5– 9.3 –11 µm, in ZMA Por. 13446 it is 48– 84 –102 x 5 – 7.4 –9 µm.
Distribution and ecology. Saudi Arabian Red Sea, Israelian Gulf of Aqaba, on reefs.
Remarks. The molecular sequence of the Jeddah specimen grouped with Voigt et al. ’s C. rowi specimens (cf. Fig. 2A); no sequence for the Aqaba specimen was obtained. For that reason we present separate morphological data for the two available specimens. The shape of the cormus of the Jeddah specimen with the longer wider tubuli combined with a fine network of thinner tubuli is the same as in Voigt et al. ’s type series. However, the shape (cylindroconical) and the size (up to 151 µm) of the triactines of the Jeddah specimen differ from the triactines of the type series, which has actines up to 103 µm long as described by Voigt et al. The Aqaba specimen has a comparable spicule size as the type series.
Sequence data for specimens assigned to C. rowi by Voigt et al. 2017 were not strongly separated from sequences we found in specimens which we assigned to Clathrina luteoculcitella Wörheide & Hooper, 1999 (cf. Fig. 2A). A larger clade with high bootstrap value unites our specimen and Voigt et al. ’s (2017) specimens of C. rowi, with Indonesian and Australian specimens of C. luteoculcitella as well as with Rodrigues specimens assigned below to C. luteoculcitella. In a separate analysis, a trimmed alignment with length 395 sites of both species comprising Australian (downloaded from the Sponge Barcode Project), Indonesian, Red Sea and Oman specimens of C. luteoculcitella, together 8 sequences, and 10 Red Sea sequences of C. rowi (most donated by Oliver Voigt, but including one of ours, RMNH 10002), showed nine non-conserved sites. Four of these sites showed a neat separation between C. luteoculcitella and C. rowi, the other 5 sites showed single specimen differences or a mixed set of differences.
description: Published as part of Van, Rob W. M. & De, Nicole J., 2018, Calcareous sponges of the Western Indian Ocean and Red Sea, pp. 1-160 in Zootaxa 4426 (1) on pages 39-41, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4426.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/1271239