Pseudosuberites latke, Turner & Rouse & Weigel & Janusson & Lemay & Thacker, 2024

Turner, Thomas L., Rouse, Greg W., Weigel, Brooke L., Janusson, Carly, Lemay, Matthew A. & Thacker, Robert W., 2024, Taxonomy and phylogeny of the family Suberitidae (Porifera: Demospongiae) in California, Zootaxa 5447 (1), pp. 1-28 : 19-21

Pseudosuberites latke sp. nov. Turner 2024

Figures 1–2 , 9

Material examined. Holotype: CASIZ 236790 , Fire Rock, Pescadero Point, (36.55898, -121.95110), 10–22 m, 8/10/21 . Paratypes: CASIZ 236791 , Goalpost , Point Loma, (32.69438, -117.26860), 12–15 m , 2/8/20; UCSB-IZC00063170 , Train wheels, Point Loma, (32.65205, -117.26243), 9/19/20; 15–29 m , 9/19/20; CASIZ 236792 , Tanker Reef , Monterey Bay, (36.60607, -121.88160), 10–16 m , 8/9/21; SBMNH 714735 , Elwood Reef , Santa Barbara, (34.41775, -119.90150), 9–15 m , 9/8/21; SBMNH 714736 , Elwood Reef , Santa Barbara, (34.41775, - 119.90150), 9–15 m , 4/17/19; UCSB-IZC00063171 , Elwood Reef , Santa Barbara, (34.41775, -119.90150), 9–15 m , 10/23/19.

Morphology. Holotype is a bushy mass, 30 mm thick 8 mm across, composed of a reticulate network of individual branches 2–5 mm in diameter. Other samples similar, but some encrusting instead of bushy, 5 mm thick, with the reticulate mass prone on substrate rather than upright. Bright yellow alive, white preserved. Oscula sometimes visible in photos of living sponges.

Skeleton. A dense confused mass of tylostyles is formed into a reticulate network. Plumose bundles and individual spicules protrude from this confused mass and pierce the surface of the sponge, making ectosome difficult to detach. Ectosomal sections contain tangential tylostyles in confusion.

Spicules. Tylostyles only. Highly variable in length and width, but without bimodal distributions. Nearly all with well-formed, round, terminal heads, but occasionally with subterminal heads. Straight or slightly curved, with uniform thickness along shaft until reaching a sharply tapering point.

Holotype: 247–400–622 x 6–12–23 μm (n=131). When ectosome and choanosome are prepared separately, spicules in ectosome are significantly shorter (p=0.016), but distributions are broadly overlapping (ectosome only: 247–361–473 x 6–10–15 μm (n=31); choanosome only: 263–410–622 x 6–13–23 μm (n=42)).

All samples combined: 176–388–730 x 2–11–23 μm (n=265). Means of each sample vary from 341 to 420 μm in length, 6 to 12 μm in width.

Distribution and habitat. All known samples were recently collected by one of the authors. Presence-absence surveys in subtidal kelp-forest habitat in California found this species to be uncommon from Monterey to San Diego (the entire investigated range); the shallowest samples were found at 10 m and the deepest at 30 m (the maximum depth investigated). It was most abundant in southern San Diego County, where it was seen at 5/12 sites investigated. Many of these were deeper (20–30 m) sites, where it may be more abundant than in very shallow water. Not seen at any island sites, intertidal sites, or on human structures. The nudibranch Doris montereyensis has been observed feeding on this species.

Remarks. Suberites and Pseudosuberites are currently distinguished by their ectosomal skeleton (a tangential and usually detachable crust carried by subectosomal spicule brushes in Pseudosuberites , a palisade of small tylostyles in Suberites ) and their tylostyle size distributions (a smaller ectosomal size class in Suberites and no localized size classes in Pseudosuberites ). This species did have some tangential ectosomal spicules, though the surface was not easily detachable as it is in some Pseudosuberites . Two size classes vs. one size class of tylostyles is likely not a discrete character, as species like P. latke sp. nov. and S. lambei have no size classes but significantly smaller spicules in the ectosome. Combining DNA and morphological data leads us to assign this species to Pseudosuberites . It is very distantly related to all genotyped Suberites , but forms a clade with Pseudosuberites from South Africa, Antarctica, and Korea at the cox1 locus.

The dense reticulation of confused tylostyles makes this species very distinct from any other species known from the region. No other Pseudosuberites are described from the Northeast Pacific. The type species P. hyalinus was once said to have been collected in Pacific Mexico ( Dickinson 1945); little description is provided, but the spicules are listed as three times as long as those of P. latke sp. nov.. A more recent publication on the sponges of the tropical Mexican Pacific includes a “ Pseudosubertes sp. ” but no morphological description is yet available ( Carballo et al. 2019).

Genus Protosuberites Swartschewsky, 1905

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum likelihood phylogeny of the 28S locus. Genbank accession numbers and collection locations (when known) are shown; bold indicates new sequences. Asterisks at nodes indicate SH-aLRT ≥ 80% and UFbootstrap ≥ 95%. Scale bar indicates substitutions per site. Asterisks in node names indicate type species of a genus.

FIGURE 2. Maximum likelihood phylogeny of the cox1 locus. Genbank accession numbers and collection locations (when known) are shown; bold indicates new sequences. Asterisks at nodes indicate SH-aLRT ≥ 80% and UFbootstrap ≥ 95%. Scale bar indicates substitutions per site. Asterisks in node names indicate type species of a genus.

FIGURE 9. Pseudosuberites latke. A: Field photo of holotype. B: Field photo of encrusting sample CASIZ 236791. C: Tangential spicules in ectosomal section. D: Dense spiculation of confused reticulation. E: Example tylostyles. F: Partially digested cross-section showing plumose spicules emerging from dense reticulation (which is obscured by remaining tissue).