Lobophyllia

Blainville, 1830, p. 321

Type Species

Madrepora corymbosa Forskål, 1775, p. 137; Subsequent Designation Matthai, 1928: 208

Type Specimen: Holotype; ZMUC ANT-000526; Verified; Dry Preserved

Type Locality: Red Sea

The holotype is figured in Matthai (1928), pl. 71, figs. 5-6.

Classification

• Family: Lobophylliidae Dai and Horng, 2009, p. 59

Synonyms

• Australomussa Veron, 1985, p. 171
• Palauphyllia Yabe, Sugiyama, and Eguchi, 1936, p. 44
• Parascolymia Wells, 1964, p.379-381
• Symphyllia Milne Edwards and Haime, 1848, p. 491

Diagnosis

Colonial; submassive or massive. Budding intracalicular, and may also be extracalicular. Corallites monomorphic or polymorphic; discrete or uniserial. Monticules absent. Walls may be fused, or colonies may be phaceloid or flabello-meandroid. Calice width large (> 15 mm), with high relief (> 6 mm). Costosepta may or may not be confluent. Septa in ≥ four cycles (≥ 48 septa). Free septa irregular. Septa spaced < six septa per 5 mm. Costosepta unequal in relative thickness. Columellae trabecular and spongy (> three threads), < 1/4 of calice width, and discontinuous among adjacent corallites with lamellar linkage. Internal lobes absent. Epitheca reduced if present. Endotheca abundant (vesicular). Tooth base at midcalice elliptical-parallel. Tooth tip orientation parallel. Teeth tall (> 0.6 mm); widely spaced (> 1 mm), with > six teeth per septum. Tooth shape unequal between first and third order septa. Tooth size unequal between wall and septum. Granules scattered on septal face; weak (rounded). Interarea palisade. Walls formed by dominant paratheca and partial septotheca. Thickening deposits in concentric rings with extensive stereome. Costa centre clusters strong; > 0.6 mm between clusters; medial lines weak. Septum centre clusters weak; > 0.5 mm between clusters; medial lines weak.

Description

'Animaux actiniformes, pourvus d'une grande quantité de tentacules cylindriques, plus ou moins longs, sortant de loges coniques, à ouverture subcirculaire, quelquefois même alongées et sinueuses, partagées en un grand nombre de sillons par des lamelles tranchantes, laciniées, situées à l'extrémité des branches, en général peu nombreuses et fasciculées, composant un polypier calcaire, fixe, turbiné, strié longitudinalement à l'extérieur et très-lacuneux à l'intérieur.' (de Blainville, 1830: 321)

Comparisons

This genus is delimited by two synapomorphies, uniserial corallites (likelihood of 1.00 based on the Mk1 model) and vesicular endotheca (likelihood 1.00). However, a reduction in the number of centres occurs among L. corymbosa, L. dentata, L. diminuta and L. serrata. On the one hand, Lobophyllia vitiensis and L. rowleyensis, previously in Parascolymia, form a clade that is supported by moderate bootstrap value (71) and decay index (2), with the synapomorphies extracalicular budding (likelihood 1.00) and polymorphic corallites (likelihood 1.00). On the other hand, species that had in the past been separated into the genera Lobophyllia and Symphyllia (sensu Matthai, 1928; Veron, 2000) do not form clades on both morphological and molecular trees. Symphyllia has often been compared to Lobophyllia, as both possess lamellar linkages between columellar centres (Matthai, 1928; Vaughan and Wells, 1943; Wells, 1956), but the former can be differentiated by its longer, meandering valleys bordered by fused walls (Chevalier, 1975; Wood, 1983; Veron, 1986, 2000). However, this distinction is problematic because Symphyllia valenciennesi Milne Edwards and Haime, 1849a, vol. 11: 256 (see Chevalier, 1975), and L. hataii Yabe, Sugiyama and Eguchi, 1936: 44, have shallow and straight valleys that radiate from the colony center, with the periphery being flabello-meandroid (Veron, 2000). These two species do not group together on the morphological phylogeny, but rather form a paraphyletic group with the rest of the Lobophyllia sensu stricto, indicating that these characters are not reliable in delimiting species groups within subclade I (sensu Arrigoni et al., 2014c). Cynarina is the sister genus of Lobophyllia, but is morphologically distinct from the latter as it is solitary and may be free-living, have weak or moderate development of septal lobes, low-moderate (tabular) endotheca, and strong costa medial lines. Although Lobophyllia is restricted to the Indo-Pacific, it has historically been confused with the Atlantic genus Mussa because they share many macromorphological characters (Chevalier, 1975; Veron, 2000). However, the presence of lamellar linkages between columellar centres in Lobophyllia, as mentioned above, is a key distinguishing feature (Matthai, 1928). Furthermore, Mussa possesses several subcorallite traits that are not found in Lobophyllia: circular tooth base, pointed tooth tip, granules aligned on septal face, interarea formed by horizontal bands, parathecal walls with trabeculothecal elements, reduced thickening deposits and transverse septal crosses (Budd and Stolarski, 2009; Budd et al., 2012).

Remarks

Lobophyllia was first described by de Blainville (1830: 321) for seven species: (1) L. glabrescens (De Chamisso and Eysenhardt, 1821: 369); (2) L. angulosa (Pallas, 1766: 299); (3) L. aurantiaca (= L. aurea Quoy and Gaimard, 1833: 195); (4) L. fastigiata (Pallas, 1766: 301); (5) L. corymbosa (Forskål, 1775: 137); (6) L. sinuosa (Lamarck, 1816: 229); and (7) L. carduus (Ellis and Solander, 1786: 153). The first, second and fourth are the type species of Euphyllia Dana, 1846: 40, Mussa Oken, 1815: 73, and Eusmilia Milne Edwards and Haime, 1848b, vol. 27: 467, respectively (Matthai, 1928), while the third belongs to Tubastraea Lesson, 1829: 93 (Cairns, 2001). The fifth species was thus chosen to be the type species of Lobophyllia, and the genus resurrected by Matthai (1928: 208) to incorporate all the Indo-Pacific species of Mussa as defined by Milne Edwards and Haime (1857), i.e. L. corymbosa (Forskål, 1775: 137), L. costata (Dana, 1846: 179; but see Sheppard, 1987) and L. hemprichii (Ehrenberg, 1834: 325). A further eight species were described in this genus by Yabe et al. (1936; two species), Chevalier (1975; one species), Veron (1985, 2000; four species) and Latypov (2006; one species). However, our analyses demonstrate that L. pachysepta Chevalier, 1975: 269, is more closely related to Acanthastrea than to other Lobophyllia species, including the type L. corymbosa, and thus should be regarded as an Acanthastrea species. Both molecular and morphological trees also show that Acanthastrea ishigakiensis Veron, 1990: 132, Parascolymia and nearly all Symphyllia species are nested amongst Lobophyllia species in subclade I (sensu Arrigoni et al., 2014c), supporting the call by Arrigoni et al. (2014c) to consolidate these taxa into a single genus. Therefore, A. ishigakiensis, both Parascolymia species and six Symphyllia species are herein transferred into Lobophyllia, which now comprises a clade of 19 closely-related species. Many of these species form single lineages, but some are paraphyletic, including L. corymbosa, L. hemprichii, L. rowleyensis and L. vitiensis (see Arrigoni et al., 2014b: fig. 9, 2014c: fig. 1). The holotype of L. corymbosa, type species of Lobophyllia, is at the ZMUC (ANT-000526), where the types of other species described by Forskål (1775) could be found today, e.g. lectotype of Dipsastraea favus (Forskål, 1775: 132; ZMUC ANT-000466) and syntypes of Cyphastrea serailia (Forskål, 1775: 135; ZMUC ANT-000367 to ANT-000373). Lobophyllia is widely distributed on the reefs of Indo-Pacific, present from the Red Sea and East Africa to as far east as the Marshall Islands in the Northern Hemisphere (Veron, 2000) and Pitcairn Islands in the Southern Hemisphere (Glynn et al., 2007).

Distribution

• Western Europe; Late Jurassic
• East Asia; Miocene
• Australasia; Miocene
• Southeast Asia; Miocene
• Southeast Asia; Pliocene - Pleistocene
• Melanesia; Pliocene
• West Asia; Pliocene
• Southeast Asia; Pliocene
• North Africa; Pleistocene
• Subsaharan Africa; Pleistocene
• East Asia; Pleistocene
• Australasia; Pleistocene
• Melanesia; Pleistocene
• Polynesia; Pleistocene
• West Asia; Pleistocene
• Southeast Asia; Pleistocene
• Indian Ocean; Recent
• Western Pacific; Recent
• Central Pacific; Recent
• Eastern Pacific; Recent
• East Asia; Holocene
• Micronesia; Holocene
• West Asia; Holocene

This page has been in preparation since 20-Jul-2010 02:42

This version was contributed by Danwei Huang on 29-Jan-2016 13:47.

Page authors are: Ann Budd Danwei Huang. Please contact the editor if you would like to contribute to the diagnosis of this taxon.

The editor is: Ann Budd