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Abyssopathes lyra (Brook, 1889). In situ photo of specimen USNM 1453760 with a character istic basket-like corallum. Photo courtesy of the NOAA OER (Note: color enhanced to show details)
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The genus Abyssopathes Opresko, 2002, comprises deep-sea black corals known almost exclusively from lower bathyal and abyssal depths, mainly from seamounts covered by cobalt-rich crusts and areas of polymetallic nodules. The taxonomical position of the genus and its placement in the family Schizopathidae has been repeatedly questioned, but fruitles...
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... genus Abyssopathes Opresko, 2002 (Figure 1), is one of the deepest occurring genera of black corals and is found exclusively at lower bathyal and abyssal depths [3,5]. Although a species of the genus Schizopathes Brook, 1889, is known from hadal depths [3,5], in general, the genus Schizopathes more commonly occurs in the bathyal zone [5,10]. ...
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... contrast, all three hitherto known species of Abyssopathes were reported from a similar depth range (3000-5000 m) from oligotrophic deep basins, often in connection with seamounts covered by cobalt-rich crusts and areas of polymetallic nodules [3,[11][12][13][14]. Bathypathes lyra Brook, 1889 (Figures 1 and 2a), the type species of Abyssopathes, was originally included by Brook [11] in the genus Bathypathes Brook, 1889, subfamily Schizopathinae of the family Antipathidae. When the genus Abyssopathes was established [12], it was reclassified within the family Schizopathidae in the absence of any data on polyp structure [11,12]. ...
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... genus Abyssopathes Opresko, 2002 (Figure 1), is one of the deepest occurring gen era of black corals and is found exclusively at lower bathyal and abyssal depths [3,5]. Alt hough a species of the genus Schizopathes Brook, 1889, is known from hadal depths [3,5] in general, the genus Schizopathes more commonly occurs in the bathyal zone [5,10]. ...
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... contrast, all three hitherto known species of Abyssopathes were reported from a simila depth range (3000-5000 m) from oligotrophic deep basins, often in connection with sea mounts covered by cobalt-rich crusts and areas of polymetallic nodules [3,[11][12][13][14]. Bathy pathes lyra Brook, 1889 (Figures 1 and 2a), the type species of Abyssopathes, was originally included by Brook [11] in the genus Bathypathes Brook, 1889, subfamily Schizopathinae o the family Antipathidae. When the genus Abyssopathes was established [12], it was reclas sified within the family Schizopathidae in the absence of any data on polyp structur [11,12]. ...
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... situ photo of specimen USNM 1453760 with a character istic basket-like corallum. Photo courtesy of the NOAA OER (Note: color enhanced to show details) Figure 1. Abyssopathes lyra (Brook, 1889). ...
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... situ photographs of Abyssopathes lyra (Figures 1 and 4a) indicate that the tentacles, when fully expanded, are relatively short compared to the transverse diameter of the polyp. A similar condition has also been observed in some in situ photos of the polyps of species of Heteropathes (Figure 4b), suggesting a possible shared characteristic; however, actual measurements of the tentacle length of living polyps are not available. ...
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... on genetic distance, Trissopathes grasshoffi (MT318862) appears to be closest to Abyssopathes; however, the cox1 sequence for T. grasshoffi is only 167 bp in length, and thus this putative close relationship is likely an artifact of a lack of comparable sequence data. 1819)). Following morphology-based taxonomic IDs are internal specimen codes followed by museum accession numbers (where applicable). ...
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... Black corals (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Hexacorallia, Antipatharia) are found in all oceans and hold the record for the deepest (Schizopathes affinis Brook, 1889 at 8,900 m; Molodtsova (2006)) and longest-lived (Leiopathes glaberrima (Esper, 1792) at 4,265 years; Roark et al. (2009)) coral and serve as underwater hosts for a diverse and staggering number of epibionts (Love et al. 2007). Black corals have historically been considered a deep-water group; however, only 31.57% of the 285 currently-described species occur at depths greater than 800 m (Molodtsova et al. 2022(Molodtsova et al. , 2023. While the black coral community continues to wait for the first antipatharian nuclear genome, black coral mitogenomics is gaining in popularity due to the ease of bioinformatically extracting whole mitogenomes from genome-skimming data (Quattrini et al. 2023a), its informativeness, cost-effectiveness and the availability of comparative data (Brugler and France 2007;Sinniger and Pawlowski 2009;Kayal et al. 2013;Figueroa et al. 2019; Barrett et al. 2020;Asorey et al. 2021;Bledsoe-Becerra et al. 2022;Feng et al. 2023;Quattrini et al. 2023a, b;Ramos et al. 2023). ...
We describe the complete mitogenomes of the black corals Alternatipathes mirabilis Opresko & Molodtsova, 2021 and Parantipathes larix (Esper, 1790) (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Hexacorallia, Antipatharia, Schizopathidae). The analysed specimens include the holotype of Alternatipathes mirabilis , collected from Derickson Seamount (North Pacific Ocean; Gulf of Alaska) at 4,685 m depth and a potential topotype of Parantipathes larix , collected from Secca dei Candelieri (Mediterranean Sea; Tyrrhenian Sea; Salerno Gulf; Italy) at 131 m depth. We also assemble, annotate and make available nine additional black coral mitogenomes that were included in a recent phylogeny (Quattrini et al. 2023b), but not made easily accessible on GenBank. This is the first study to present and compare two mitogenomes from the same species of black coral ( Stauropathes arctica (Lütken, 1871)) and, thus, place minimum boundaries on the expected level of intraspecific variation at the mitogenome level. We also compare interspecific variation at the mitogenome-level across five different specimens of Parantipathes Brook, 1889 (representing at least two different species) from the NE Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.
... Our ancestral reconstruction supports black corals' first diversification at slope depths. Additionally, most extant species occupy shelf and slope habitats between 50 and 800 m [55], with less than 20 species occupying the abyss. Based on our reconstruction, all abyssal lineages originated within the last 50 My. ...
Deep-sea lineages are generally thought to arise from shallow-water ancestors, but this hypothesis is based on a relatively small number of taxonomic groups. Anthozoans, which include corals and sea anemones, are significant contributors to the faunal diversity of the deep sea, but the timing and mechanisms of their invasion into this biome remain elusive. Here, we reconstruct a fully resolved, time-calibrated phylogeny of 83 species in the order Antipatharia (black coral) to investigate their bathymetric evolutionary history. Our reconstruction indicates that extant black coral lineages first diversified in continental slope depths (∼250–3000 m) during the early Silurian (∼437 millions of years ago (Ma)) and subsequently radiated into, and diversified within, both continental shelf (less than 250 m) and abyssal (greater than 3000 m) habitats. Ancestral state reconstruction analysis suggests that the appearance of morphological features that enhanced the ability of black corals to acquire nutrients coincided with their invasion of novel depths. Our findings have important conservation implications for anthozoan lineages, as the loss of ‘source’ slope lineages could threaten millions of years of evolutionary history and confound future invasion events, thereby warranting protection.
... Black corals are an order in the sub-phylum Anthozoa (McFadden et al. 2022), which consists of 301 currently accepted species (WoRMS 2023) that are found in all oceans from just below the surface down to depths greater than 8000 m. Black corals are an enigmatic group due to logistical challenges associated with collecting species, most of which live deeper than 50 m depth (Molodtsova et al. 2023), and because many species are known from only one or a few specimens. Also, single-locus and full mitochondrial genomes lack the required phylogenetic resolution to resolve relationships between closely related species and genera. ...
Black corals (Anthozoa: Antipatharia) are an anthozoan lineage in the class Hexacorallia that occur across a wide range of habitats from the tropics to the poles and from surface waters to depths deeper than 8000 m. A new species of black coral, Aphanipathes puertoricoensis sp. nov. , collected with a remotely operated vehicle 357 m deep off Puerto Rico is recognized in the family Aphanipathidae. The new species is characterized by very long and loosely coiled primary branches and up to 0.5 mm tall spines with as many as 40 or more small conical tubercles. A phylogeny composed of 13 taxa that are closely related to the new species was reconstructed from 793 nuclear loci to show their systematic relationships. Our study integrated morphological and genomic data to show that this new species is distinct from other species in the genus Aphanipathes. Furthermore, our results add to the growing knowledge of black coral diversity, while further demonstrating the need for exploration in deep waters of the Caribbean Sea.
