A new genus of soft coral (Octocorallia, Malacalcyonacea, Cladiellidae) and three new species from Indo-Pacific coral reefs

By

McFadden, Catherine
Benayahu, Yehuda
Samimi-Namin, Kaveh

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2024

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1188

Pages

275--304

Subjects

DNA barcoding , molecular phylogeny , new combination , northern Red Sea , Ofwegenum gen. nov , Oman , Réunion , sclerites , target-enrichment , taxonomy , ultraconserved elements

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1188.110617

 

Abstract

Molecular systematic studies of the anthozoan class Octocorallia have revealed widespread incongruence between phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic classification at all levels of the Linnean hierarchy. Among the soft coral taxa in order Malacalcyonacea, the family Alcyoniidae and its type genus Alcyonium have both been recognised to be highly polyphyletic. A recent family-level revision of Octocorallia established a number of new families for genera formerly considered to belong to Alcyoniidae, but revision of Alcyonium is not yet complete. Previous molecular studies have supported the placement of Alcyonium verseveldti (Benayahu, 1982) in family Cladiellidae rather than Alcyoniidae, phylogenetically distinct from the other three genera in that family. Here we describe a new genus, Ofwegenumgen. nov. to accommodate O. verseveldticomb. nov. and three new species of that genus, O. coronalucissp. nov., O. kloogisp. nov., and O. collisp. nov., bringing the total number of species in this genus to four. Ofwegenumgen. nov. is a rarely encountered genus so far known from only a few locations spanning the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. We present the morphological characters of each species and use molecular data from both DNA barcoding and target-enrichment of conserved elements to explore species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships within the genus.