Expanded sampling of New Zealand glass sponges (Porifera: Hexactinellida) provides new insights into biodiversity, chemodiversity, and phylogeny of the class. PeerJ 11:e15017 http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15017
Martin Dohrmann 1,*, Henry M. Reiswig 2,†, Michelle Kelly 3, Sadie Mills 4, Simone Schätzle 1, Miriam Reverter 5, Natascha Niesse 6, Sven Rohde 6, Peter Schupp 6,7, Gert Wörheide 1,8,9
1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Palaeontology & Geobiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Richard-Wagner-Str. 10, 80333 München, Germany
2 Biology Department, University of Victoria, Natural History Section, P.O. Box 3020 Stn CSC, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3N5
3 Coasts and Oceans National Centre, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, Private Bag 99940, Auckland 1149, New Zealand
4 NIWA Invertebrate Collection, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, Evans Bay Parade, Wellington, New Zealand
5 School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, United Kingdom
6 ICBM, Carl-von-Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Schleusenstraße 1, 26382 Wilhelmshaven, Germany
7 Helmholtz-Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB), Oldenburg, Germany
8 GeoBio-Center, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Richard-Wagner-Str. 10, 80333 Munich, Germany
9 SNSB – Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie, Richard-Wagner-Str. 10, 80333 München, Germany
*Corresponding author. Current address: Gottfried-Böhm Ring 31, 81369 München, Germany
†Deceased
Glass sponges (Hexactinellida) constitute important parts of ecosystems on the deep-sea floor worldwide. However, they are still an understudied group in terms of their diversity and systematics. Here, we report on new specimens collected during RV Sonne expedition SO254 to the New Zealand region, which has recently emerged as a biodiversity hotspot for hexactinellids. Examination of the material revealed several species new to science or so far unknown from this area. While formal taxonomic descriptions of a fraction of these were published earlier (Reiswig et al. 2021, ZooKeys 1060:33–84), we here briefly report on the morphology of the remaining new species and use the collection to greatly expand the molecular phylogeny of the group as established with ribosomal DNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit I markers. In addition, we provide a chemical fingerprinting analysis on a subset of the specimens to investigate if the metabolome of glass sponges contains phylogenetic signal that could be used to supplement morphological and DNA-based approaches.