Five Important Facts about Paulasterias and the Paulasteriidae! NEW species! New genus! New Family!

Another new week and another new discovery that I'm overjoyed to share with everyone! A NEW paper I've published in the prestigious Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society! link here This paper was co-authored by colleagues from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the National Oceanography Centre at Southmapton, in the UK, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and Dave Foltz from Louisiana State University. 

This whole paper is basically a monument to scientific collaboration! Basically, I was contacted by the BAS to study sea star specimens they had collected from a new hydrothermal vent system in the Scotia Arc, (Antarctica) which is famously the habitat of the "Hoff Crab"   and as it turns out, they encountered MANY different types of animals from this area. Barnacles, "hoff crabs"...and even sea stars (as we can see from this Wired gallery!)

They turned them over to me for study and while analyzing their DNA we found that they were actually closely related to ANOTHER sea star which I had collected during the MBARI 2009 Pacific Northwest Expedition!!  

and off we go....

1. FIRST starfish from a Hydrothermal Vent Habitat!!
                                   
UPDATE: New Video!

There aren't many echinoderms that live in these types of environments, such as brittle stars, sea cucumbers but this species is the FIRST starfish/sea star to be found in association with a hydrothermal vent habitat! 

Why? Hard to say, exactly but it probably has to do with the fact that most echinoderms can't process toxins very well. Their "body fluid" is basically sea water. This is probably why there are no freshwater or land echinoderms.

These starfish aren't "primary" vent fauna, such as big vent worms or clams that can manufacture food out directly of toxic sulfide..  These exist at the edge of the community feeding on the animals that ARE part of the primary vent community. BUT that said, they are pretty important (see below)

this handy chart from THIS paper by Leigh Marsh et al. in PLOS One!  shows this relationship...

2. What do they eat? Barnacles & HOFF crabs! 

A study of the food web among the fauna at the Scotia Arc site (in this keen PLOS One paper!) showed that they occupy a fairly important role in this community as one of the top predators.

Among their food? The weird stalked barnacle, Vulcanolepis The zonation above is probably not that discrete but it does suggest that animals on the "periphery" probably move inside and among all the inner zones, although there are probably several of these that are at the "edge" of their overall zone...

                            

and the very abundant "hoff crab" 

There's obviously a LOT we still have to learn about the ecology of this habitat! But as far as understanding a habitat 2000-2500 meters down, in the Antarctic??  Knowing the top predator is a good start! 

3. NEW family, new genus and two new species!
So, we have a weird, deep-sea habitat with weird inhabitants. What does the starfish look like??
The skeleton is pretty reduced. A fairly soft and fleshy body wall.

As I had mentioned earlier, my colleagues and I were ALSO studying this beast... an innocuous looking 6-rayed sea star from the North Pacific!! Collected by myself and MBARI during the 2009 Pacific Northwest Expedition! 

Astonishingly, almost EVERYTHING starfish from the area studied during the expedition was new!! 

                                      
An  analysis of the molecules from these two species showed that they were in fact, closely related to one another!!

The truth is that there were not a lot of external characteristics that could have been used to have done the same analysis.

AND molecules also revealed that these two species were part of a lineage or clade SEPARATE from other known species!

HENCE! NEW names were needed! NEW SPECIES! NEW GENERA! and ultimately a NEW FAMILY was needed to properly describe these animals!!

This makes sense. "New" ecosystem and you have new species which compose that ecosystem. Another reason that taxonomy is important! 

This makes these species one of the FIRST new families of sea stars to be described since the 70s! (or possibly the 90s, it sort of depends on how you look at it)

4. Unusual and yet related to something familiar...
So, a lot of this might seem kind of alien to everyone, so here's a little something that I think everyone can relate to..

It turns out that these two starfish species are members of the Forcipulatacea, which is the larger group of starfishes to which familiar, intertidal species belong! Read this account of their unusual evolutionary tree! 

This familiar Pisaster ochraceus 

and Asterias rubens..

Are both distant relatives of these two weird deep-sea species!  What character is shared between them? Features such as these pedicellariae! Tiny wrench shaped claws that cover the body...

                             
5. Named for some deep-sea biologists! 
So... WHAT TO NAME THEM?? As a taxonomist, one of my super powers is that I can honor a person, place or thing by converting their name into Latin, thus immortalizing them into the history of science!

As a matter of good practice, its considered more informative to use descriptive terms, but ultimately species names are at the discretion of the author.

The Antarctic species had been discovered by the British Antarctic Survey and these expeditions had heavily involved Dr. Paul Tyler from the Southampton Oceanographic Centre and so it was decided that the Antarctic species would be named Paulasterias tyleri!

Which basically translate's to "Paul Tyler's starfish" (kind of)...

Dr. Tyler is a HUGE name in deep-sea biology, having co-written one of the most important books in deep-sea research in addition to hundreds of articles on deep-sea ecology and invertebrates!

Professor Tyler was recently been made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)!!(here) 

The North Pacific species was discovered under the auspice of my colleague and friend Craig Mcclain over at Deep-Sea News!

And so, I deemed that this second species would be named for him! honoring him was critical!
Otherwise would these species have EVER been discovered if it were not for him???

              

  Craig has written a GREAT post on Paulasterias mcclaini over at Deep-Sea News here. 
MORE QUESTIONS!..This discovery is only the START of many MORE questions!

• How does this species tolerate even a little bit of the toxic sulfide in the water?
• Do these have defenses given that they are basically little six to eight-rayed fleshy, water bags?
• How do they capture and eat a hoff crab?? 
• What is the relevance of this group to the diversification and evolution of forcipulate sea star?
• How do members of this family become so widely distributed??
• How many more of these are out there somewhere??
• IS this 6-rayed Atlantic starfish seen by the Okeanos Explorer the same thing???

                                      
My special thanks to Katrin Linse, Jon Copley (@expeditionlog), Leigh Marsh, Dave Foltz, Alex Rodgers, Dave Clague, Craig Mcclain, Lonny Lundsten and Linda Kuhnz!

A sea urchin that eats.... WOOD???

(from the MBARI 2001 Mendocino Cruise)

Today there is weird deep-sea sea-urchin fun! This great but kind of tucked away paper by Pierre Becker et al. published in 2009 in Les Cahiers de Biologie Marine (50: 343-352) reporting on Ind0-Pacific sea urchins from deep-sea wood falls!

What is Asterechinus elegans??!!

In my experience, the first indication that you've got an interesting story is when you've got an unusual critter that no one's ever heard of...

Case in point: According to the NHM echinoid site, Asterechinus is a member of the Trigonocidaridae, a family SO frakkin' weird that I had never even heard of it or Asterechinus before!
And since the database picture is based on scanned images from the original description and figures by Theodor Mortensen in 1942, the species is rare enough that pictures were NOT immediatley available! And for the NHM database...that's sayin' something!

So, from the paper's Figure 1A comes what is likely to be the FIRST live picture of this animal since 1942 (over 65 years!). Its a small species with the largest never exceeding 25 mm. And look! It lives on...wood!

(Figure 1A from Becker et al. 2009)

These were specimens collected by the French BOA I and SANTOBOA cruises in 2005 and 2006 respectively to the Vanuatu Archipelago. Apparently, a great deal of woodfall organisms were obtained...One of which is written up here..

Here's a deep-sea log to give you kind of an idea of what deep-sea wood looks like..

(from the MBARI 2001 Mendocino Cruise)

So before we start on the next section just a brief bit of background- "Wood fall ecology" is part of a relatively new part of marine ecology, including the study of whale falls that studies the influx of massive amounts of organic nutrients to the seafloor's bottom. More on whale falls can be had here.

(from the Census of Marine Life ChemoSynethics site)

Because the deep-seafloor lies so far below the sun's immediate influence, it can be relatively poor in nutrients, making ANY kind of potential nutrient deposit, such as a dead whale, unrooted kelp, trees, etc. a BIG event.

A succession of unusual faunas, composed of both fishes and invertebrates, usually springs up around these deep-sea oases when they form. As it turns out, this urchin forms a member of this fauna.
Other wood-related echinoderms include the weird-enigmatic sea daisy Xyloplax!
It Eats Wood!!! (aka Xylophagy!)So, upon collection and preservation, they opened the specimens up and looked at the guts-and lo and behold! The guts of these critters were FILLED with wood!! To quote the paper

Observations on the gut content of all individuals (n=20) revealed that they were mainly composed of numerous wood fragments of different size, shape and colour. For instance some were small light cubes, while others were large dark twigs of up to 7mm long.(!)

Although most sea urchins are known primarily as herbivores, they-like many other animals- naturally LACK the ability to innately digest cellulose from trees. And so, Becker et al. cultured and analyzed the microbes in the gut and came up with this...

There was FILAMENTOUS BACTERIA in their guts!! And all of it was in contact with the woody food in the urchin's intestine...

(from Fig. 2C from Becker et al. 2009)

Tests of these bacteria revealed them to be composed of a variety of bacterial types, including Proteobacteria, Planctomycete, Firmicutes, Cytophaga-Flexibacter-Bacteroides, and Actinobacteria. These were all compared against other known marine bacteria using DNA phylogenetic analysis. And it turns out that the bacteria had CLOSE relationship to a bunch of veeerrryyy interesting other bacteria including

1. bacteria from the gut of other xylophagous (wood-eating) animals
2. bacteria from sulphide-rich environments (such as big dead whale falls)
3. mangrove soils
4. marine sediments from hydrothermal vents & cold seeps!!

Why is # 4 important? Bacteria function in vent and seep animals to help process toxic substances, such as sulfide, into digestible form in order for the host to process the nutrients. Closely related organisms often share similar qualities...

Although the authors did not have the exact and complete story, the data above, in addition to other elements of the intestinal bacteria flora all STRONGLY suggests that Asterechinus elegans may host a bacterial community in their guts which they use to aid in wood digestion!!

What other animals use a microbial flora in their guts to aid in digestion?

Termites!
Cows!
and People!

(this image from Nature.com)

Finally...if these deep-sea urchins EAT wood..Do they also eat....WITCHES?

New Species of Sea Stars from the North Pacific and BEYOND!

This week I announce a NEW paper in the latest issue of the journal ZOOTAXA describing a new genus and THREE new species of deep-sea starfishes! Vol. 4175 (2): 101-141 

You may recall back in 2009 when I accompanied the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) on a 10 day cruise exploring the North Pacific on the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Mid Ocean Ridges off the Oregon coast. Here was the cruise website.  I blogged about it here.

When we returned from the expedition I was VERY excited because we had collected MANY specimens and several were either new records of rarely seen species or outright NEW species!

I would like to give a big shout out to MBARI because almost EVERY thing they send me turns out to be a NEW species!  Here's a new coral-devouring star I named after MBARI geologist Dave Clague  and here was a poraniid starfish that was observed climbing up a black coral (antipatharian) to devour it

One of my favorite undiscovered starfish was this one, Paulasterias macclaini which I had to describe a whole FAMILY and genus in order to accommodate it!  This species was named for Dr. Craig Macclain, at Deep-Sea News, who had invited me on the cruise.

I wrote about it here.  But he was VERY happy to write up something about it on Deep-Sea News! (here)  

Well, describing that 6 rayed star took quite a bit of effort but there were many, MANY more species to understand!!!

We also collected many of the more 'non-descript' stars that we encountered as well as several others which turned out to be UNDESCRIBED species!! 

And YES its literally taken me almost 6 YEARS to get all of this done. As I've discussed before (here), it can sometimes take quite awhile for a species to be formally described.

 One report made the case it takes an average of 21 YEARS for a specimen to go from collection to publication! (I've summarized it here)

The starfish I reported on in my Zootaxa paper are members of the Goniasteridae, the most diverse family of sea stars, which includes over 260 species in 65 genera!  Most goniasterids live in relatively deep-water (continental shelf and deeper) but historically, there haven't been many of them known from abyssal and lower bathyal (i.e., >1000 meter) depths.

Only recently have we been seeing better collections of these animals from these depths. As I've reported below, some were collected from below 4000 meters!

Sibogaster nieseni! 
The first few specimens of this species were collected by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from Taney Seamount (off the coast of San Francisco) from abyssal depths (over 3000 meters!).

It is named for one of my former advisors from San Francisco State University: Professor Tom Niesen (now emeritus)! Author of the Marine Biology Coloring book and noted intertidal naturalist/ecologist along the California coast! 

He gave me my first shot at grad school and happily, his advice and instincts correctly guided me through my early years as a Masters degree student!

photo by J. Sharei

It seemed VERY appropriate to name this species, from off central California, after someone who has done so much to educate others about the significance of the invertebrates of the coast!! 

Interestingly, as I was in the process of writing it up, I suddenly became aware of multiple specimens of similar individuals from OTHER oceans in museums where I was NOT expecting to see them!

This one for example, turned out to be almost identical to the Pacific one I was working on but was from the tropical ATLANTIC! and even one from the deeps of Indonesia... 

Also, unusual is how, such a moderately big animal (about 4 to 5 inches in diameter) could have gone undescribed for so long?  But given how deep it was found (2100 to 4175 meters !) its been well "hidden"! 

This species is likely the deepest member of the Goniasteridae known.

and like several other abyssal species, such as the deep-sea sea cucumber Psychropotes, occurs widely, sometimes in multiple oceans

Ceramaster pointsurae! 

This was a tiny little species that I think we collected as part of something else.. perhaps sampling sediment or some other part of the physical environment.

BUT it turns out that it is likely a new and distinct species with some resemblance to the shallow-water species of Ceramaster (aka the cookie stars) in shallow waters..

This species was found during my 2009 trip on the President Jackson Seamont at about 1975 meters! 

This species is named for the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories retired vessel, the Point Sur which was finally retired in 2014. 

I spent many a day sorting deep-sea invertebrates on the deck of the Point Sur and I was saddened to hear about its retirement.

Bathyceramaster careyi! New genus and NEW species! 

Figuring this one out required a bit of detective work, as it turns out...

Several years ago when I was working as a technician for the California Academy of Sciences, I had the pleasure of studying a newly deposited collection of deep-sea starfishes from Oregon State University.

It turned out, that one of the species in the collection was a rarely known species called "Mediaster elegans" collected by oceanographer Drew Carey. To the best of the knowledge of the workers at the time, it was thought that this was a new occurrence, since the original specimens were only known from South America (collected in 1905). 

But as it turns out, after comparing Carey's specimens with the newly collected material by MBARI AND the original type series (i.e., the specimens on which the species was based) it turned out there were actually TWO species present, "Mediaster elegans" (original name) AND this one!  And the one seen by Carey in 1972 was actually undescribed! So, what I'd argue was actually "Mediaster elegans" turns has not actually been seen until now...

and not only that, it had to be placed into a new GENUS in order to be correctly described! 

Boom! NEW genus described! New SPECIES described!

This species was ultimately found to occur throughout the North Pacific between 1700 and 3363 meter depths! 

With this one, named for Dr. Andrew Carey, formerly of Oregon State University! 

The gut contents described by Carey's paper in 1972 suggests that this species feeds on deep-sea sponges.

The paper outlines several goniasterids from the North Pacific at depths below 1000 meters, including several which have not been seen since their description. 

Now that the new genus Bathyceramaster has been described, I can also follow up with a note I made on one of the recent Okeanos dives to Wake Island! 

This white goniasterid we saw at about 2000 m MIGHT be Bathyceramaster, but I'd need to more closely examine the surface to be sure. But if the closeups of the surface texture were correct.. I think maybe??

New discoveries that lead to new questions!! 

What are they eating down there? How do they get so big? Why do some of these species always seem to be alone when you see them? 

My thanks to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the California Academy of Sciences'  Department of Invertebrate Zoology and the Museum national d'Historie naturelle in Paris! 

2009 Pacific NW Expedition: What Happens Next? Waiting & Recovery!

So, when last we left off...the ROV Doc Ricketts had been deployed into the depths! We did this almost EVERY day we were out.

We were pretty much on track with the expedition for the first half of the dive. Got to see several of the targeted northern seamounts- CoAxial, and North Cleft...but weather out there can be tricky and we ended up moving south to President Jackson and then gradually down to the Northern Escanaba Trough (called NESCA) and then eventually a final day at Pioneer Seamount close to the California coast. Most everyone, then focused their attention on the dive depending on what the priorities for the diver were that day.

(photo by Soureya Becker)

The ROV control room becomes THE Place to be during these dives and if you had any kind of science being done, it was usually in your best interest to be there for the whole duration. You can see me there on the right with my left hand on my chin.

The control room is a clean dark room with lots of big "super villain base control room" type hi-resolution plasma TV screens showing input from about a dozen different cameras located on the Doc Ricketts IN addition to the control monitors (many with touch-screen controls!), various control panels, joysticks, video monitors, video recording devices, and so forth.

Among the control room amenities: very comfortable First Class airplane type chairs in the back, a comfy rug, lights off during operation, and is LITERALLY the coolest place on the ship (because the AC needs to be on) when everything is go.

So, what do you see? A lot of stuff like this:

Stunning geology...

(lava pillars supporting crust from a drained lava lake from the MBARI expedition blog)

And one amazing sponge after another!

(crinoids on a "goiter" sponge from the MBARI expedition log)

Shown here: When I was around..we observed and collected deep-sea starfish, such as this very large and gelatinous Hymenaster (which I will talk more about later this week-but if you are impatient-you can see the write up I wrote on the MBARI expedition log)

(photo by Soureya Becker)

Some of my colleagues had the dazzling sense to actually take pictures of the video screen shots as they were happening!

The ROV pilots used one of about 3 different devices-two mechanical arms, and a suction sampler to collect stuff onto the submersible.

(photo by Soureya Becker)

I'll tell ya' the truth though. NO one can sit in a completely dark room full of TVs for 10 hours straight. Especially when you've got a lot of days that look like this outside: ...and on some days, you actually have some company.. You can barely see it, but that was the Woods Hole Research vessel R/V Atlantis hanging off our port side aft. and also, you occasionally see dolphins, whales, mola molas, etc. But ultimately, you don't NEED to be in the ROV control room all day.
Sometimes they do "geology" when you do "biology" or othertimes, they just have other stuff going on..But you're out in the middle of the North Pacific with nary a shopping mall in sight!

So what other stuff do you do?

1. Relax. There's always just crashing in your bunk in your very cozy stateroom. This was especially popular the first few days when motion sickness was still pretty common. 2. The laundry. The Western Flyer had state of the art laundering technology available! I used them a bunch of times! 3. EAT! One of the most important personnel on the ship was Patrick, the steward (who is also trained as a fully trained Marine Geologist). One of the smarter personnel who found a creative way to get out to sea to observe cool rocks! Patrick kept breakfast, lunch and dinner ready on time every day. I've yet to be on a research vessel that didn't have above average day to day meals and MBARI did NOT disappoint...

(photo from MBARI's 2007 Seamount expedition)

4. WORK!

You could still get internet uploaded twice a day, image files to organize, and all sorts of other work that needed to be done. There's a designated workspace for everyone to be busy... Above we see Dr. Dave Clague, chief scientist conferring with Gillian-one of the biology team specialists! and here is Dr. Craig McLain, writer of Deep-Sea news, here working on stuff!! blogging? writing mission reports? Power Point presentation? Craig worked so hard on this cruise I got tired of watching him after the first day!

...and then the ROV Comes back!! After letting the submersible pilots strap down and secure the ROV, the science teams head over to the storage compartments to inventory and take care of the rock and animal specimens collected on the trip. The big box on the left is largely used for rock storage. The two boxes in the middle-for storing animals...and the cylinders on the right are push-cores which were used for taking sediment samples and anything that happened to be sitting on them... There's also further storage that are out of view that will swing around on command and large bottles that are connected to the suction sampler. Suffice it to say...if you're down at 3000 meters for 10 hours you collect a LOT of stuff.. Here we see Chief Scientist Dave Clague recovering rock samples from the rock storage box.... By the time the ROV has returned, everyone knows it-and the science teams for both Biology and Geology are convened in the lab in order to prepare for processing... This includes biological samples-animal specimens. Shown being handled by MBARI technician Linda Kuhnz, a woman whom I have come to respect as having seen MORE Rathbunaster californicus (a deep-sea starfish from Monterey Bay) video then probably ANY single living person (myself included).

(Photo courtesy of the very talented Bernard Roth)

...and a stalked crinoid sample being processed by Dr. Julio Harvey and the aforementioned Gillian

(Photo courtesy of the very talented Bernard Roth)

and of course photos of me and Dr. Harvey discussing sciencey stuff while I look over some starfish at the dissecting scope...

(Photo courtesy of the very talented Bernard Roth)

Meanwhile, the Geology team breaks down the sediment cores recovered on the cruise...

(Photo courtesy of the very talented Bernard Roth)

and looks at rock samples recovered from the volcanic rock formations observed on the cruise! Many of which had critters living on them!

(Photo courtesy of the very talented Bernard Roth)

Processing is always a pretty intense process, often taking several hours to get everything completely done, even with everyone involved.

....Later this week: We wrap up with more rocks and some STARFISH!!