Revision of the type species of Metroperiella (Bryozoa, Cheilostomatida), with the description of two new species

ABSTRACT

We here fix the types of Schizoporella lepralioides Calvet in Jullien and Calvet, type species of the genus Metroperiella Canu & Bassler, and redescribe the species based on scanning electron microscope examination. Metroperiella populations from the Mediterranean Sea, which have hitherto been regarded as conspecific with Metroperiella lepralioides, are introduced as a new species, Metroperiella mesogeia sp. nov. Accordingly, the geographic distribution of M. lepralioides is restricted to its type locality, the Azores Archipelago (central North Atlantic). Another species, Metroperiella porellidesia sp. nov., which occurs sympatrically with M. lepralioides, is also newly described.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:523EA5DE-B023-48ED-8D85-37CAF5475164

KEYWORDS:

• Azores
• biodiversity
• biogeography
• Bitectiporidae
• Mediterranean Sea
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

Michèle Bruni kindly provided the type specimens of, and information on, M. lepralioides from the MOM collection, Mary Spencer Jones assisted with the collection at the NHMUK, and Maja Novosel as well as Antonietta Rosso are thanked for sending SEM images of M. mesogeia colonies. We are also grateful for the comments of two anonymous reviewers that improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

BB was supported by the SYNTHESYS Project (http://www.synthesys.info/), which is financed by the European Community Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 ‘Capacities’ Program (FR-TAF-1902 and -5579), and by the Portuguese Funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology under UID/BIA/50027/2013 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006821. KA is grateful to the NGO Enalia Physis Environmental Research Center and the Cyprus Institute (Energy, Environment & Water Research Centre) for supporting the research. Collection of samples of M. mesogeia was done in the frame of the MEDITS Cyprus project (AP Marine Environmental Ltd and Department of Fisheries and Marine Research in Cyprus) and the CYCLAMEN project (Total Foundation; BIO_2014_091_Juin_CS-8). Present funding to KA is provided by the University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship. The Azores settlement experiment that yielded the type material of M. porellidesia was carried out by MW within a project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Fr 1134/12).