Evidence of niche conservatism and host fidelity in the polar shrimp Lebbeus kiae n. sp. (Decapoda: Caridea: Thoridae) from the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Abstract

We report a remarkable case of ‘bipolarism’, where two different polar species, namely Lebbeus polaris in the northern hemisphere and Lebbeus kiae n. sp., here described from the Southern Ocean, have been found to share similar ecologies. Despite the great geographical distance between the two species, both show high host fidelity in associations\ud with two congeneric sea anemones: Bolocera tuediae and Bolocera kerguelensis, respectively. A close molecular phylogenetic relationship between the two Lebbeus species is indicated by COI data, which clearly show them as sister clades with respect to other congeners as well as a plurality of other Antarctic species. This is the first reported case of a defensive association in the Southern Ocean involving shrimps and sea anemones. The distribution of the new species,\ud limited to seamount systems off the Ross Sea, may be the result of a specific colonisation/speciation event in the past, although more molecular data are needed to unravel the phylogenetic relationships within the genus Lebbeus. Despite this uncertainty, the persistence of ecological traits, i.e., the defensive association with sea anemones, indicates the presence of niche conservatism in this clade of shrimps

Long time hidden: second record in the type locality and redescription of rare caridean shrimp Lebbeus uschakovi (Kobjakova, 1936) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Thoridae)

“…Lebbeus uschakovi may therefore be a specialized species, adapted to particular conditions of hard bottom biotopes with strong near bottom currents and rich epifauna. Taking into account ability of Lebbeus species to form association with cnidarians [Jonsson et al, 2001;Schiaparelli et al, 2015] we can't exclude that L. uschakovi also maintains commensal or symbiotic relationships with some epifaunal taxa. Effective collect-ing of Lebbeus species which have specialized modes of life requires targeted sampling (as partly applied in the present study) and even special methods, i.e.…”

“…Effective collect-ing of Lebbeus species which have specialized modes of life requires targeted sampling (as partly applied in the present study) and even special methods, i.e. remotely operated vehicles [Nye, Copley, 2014;Schiaparelli et al, 2015] or whale-bone mooring [Nye, 2013], because their biotopes may be difficult for applying conventional gears.…”

“…This is particularly important for documenting diversity, and clarifying taxonomy of the genus Lebbeus White, 1847. This genus appears to be highly diverse, currently including 68 species group taxa: 66 accepted species and 1 subspecies [De Grave, Fransen, 2011;Komai, 2013Komai, , 2015Komai et al, 2012;Nye, 2013;Nye et al, 2013;Matsuzaki et al, 2015;Schiaparelli et al, 2015;Chan, Komai, 2017;WORMS, 2018], and Lebbeus pauli Brandt, 1851 which is distinct but largely overlooked species [Menshutkina, 1987], not listed in WORMS (2018). Lebbeus spp.…”

“…Lebbeus spp. shows interesting biogeographical patterns [Fransen, 1997;Nye, 2013;Schiaparelli et al, 2015;Komai et al, 2016], demonstrate cases of symbiosis [Jonsson et al, 2001;Schiaparelli et al, 2015], and association of some species with hydrothermal biotopes [Nye et al, 2013], cold seeps [Chan, Komai, 2017], and whale carcasses on the bottom [Nye, 2013].…”

An exhaustive evaluation of modeling ecological niches above species level to predict marine biological invasions

“…Despite this, in this work we reduced the effect of this issue by weighting the centroids and covariances of the ellipsoids of both modeling units to prevent that species with a higher density of records from skewing the models towards these conditions. 2) Even though niche conservatism is a widely observed pattern in marine species Warren et al 2008;Holland y Zaffos 2011;Schiaparelli et al 2015), there is also evidence of some exceptions in this environment. For example, Borza et al (2021) observed niche differentiation in different species of marine crustaceans.…”