October, 1999 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 6 
Monticellina. Rick again suggested taking 
into account the relative size of the neurosetae 
compared to the notosetae and neurosetae’s 
general shape in the determination of genera. 
Monticellina sp SD 6 was suggested to be M. 
serratiseta. The main difference was 
determined to be that M. serratiseta had wide 
ventral grooves and M. sp. SD 6 had deep 
grooves. Monticellina sp 1 from Lovell and 
Phillips was the same as M. sp. SD 4. Tony 
introduced a M. cryptica with a stain variation 
similar to Aphelochaeta sp SD2. 
The last worms discussed were a nephtyid with 
large dorsal lamellae and a Plakosyllis sp LA 1 
from Catalina Island brought by MBC lab. 
Characters included a flat body, and dorsal 
globular cirri; it was close to Eurysyllis 
spicum. Larry will bring a copy of the E. 
spicum voucher sheet for the next meeting. 
Leslie had a good suggestion of using o-ring 
sealed plastic micro-centrifuge tubes with 
screw caps for transporting small preserved 
specimens. These can be ordered from VWR 
and most other scientific supply houses. She 
gave everyone a tube to check out. The tubes 
are polyethylene and can be used with either 
formalin solutions or with alcohol solutions. 
She also informed us of, and circulated, a 
special supplemental issue to Volume 42 of the 
Israel Journal of Zoology (1999) which deals 
with the ecology and taxonomy of lancelets. 
Although the status of our only local species, 
Branchiostoma californiense is not changed in 
these pages, the authorship of the taxon is 
corrected from J. G. Cooper 1893 to (Andrews 
1893)(this correction will be made in Edition 4 
of the SCAMIT list). 
18 OCTOBER MEETING 
The meeting started off with Ron Velarde 
discussing the 13 October meeting at SCCWRP 
for QC and synoptic review of B’98 trawl 
data. Ron and Don Cadien (who also attended) 
were surprised at the number of errors made in 
everything from procedures to identifications. 
Even so the data was much cleaner and more 
uniform than in the SCBPP in 1994. The data 
for the invertebrates was cleaned up by the 
group, every agency was also given a copy of 
the original data set prior to “cleaning”, so the 
initial data-set could be reconstructed if the 
changes were later found to be unwarranted. 
Larry Cooper, SCCWRP data manager for the 
project, is also keeping a paper trail log of all 
modifications to the submitted data. 
Changes implemented at the meeting were: 1) 
those which resulted from inclusion of taxa 
from non-target communities (benthic infaunal 
and holopelagic taxa), 2) taxa judged too small 
to meet the minimum size criterion for data 
inclusion, 3) uncorrected field ID’s for which 
FID or voucher specimens had been examined 
- and new IDs generated, or 4) detected field or 
data entry errors. For instance, one database 
record of 185 Ascidiacea turned out, based on 
examination of the field sheets, to be a pull¬ 
down list data entry error, where Ascidiacea 
was grabbed instead of Allocentrotus fragilis. A 
set of secondary analytical data-set changes 
proposed by Dave Montagne and Don Cadien 
was circulated to the participants, but not acted 
upon. Changes of this second type would not 
be made to the base data-set, but only to the 
analytic data-set derived from it. These 
recommendations, if accepted by the analysts, 
would only be acted on later in the process. 
Fish data were also addressed at the same 
meeting. 
Ron then voiced his opinion/desire that most 
people should soon be finishing up their B’98 
samples and the Re-ID process should begin 
fairly soon. A few of the QC exchange samples 
have already been distributed, but most are still 
awaiting action. 
John Ljubenkov proudly passed around a book 
he recently purchased off the web. It was 
British Sea Anemones and Corals by PH. 
Gosse, 1860. The book was quite impressive 
with beautiful hand-painted color plates all 
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