Starfish Reproduction Via the Performance of Isabella Rosellini

Happy Springtime!
By now, many people have seen the famous series of unusual but uh...compelling videos on inset sex entitled "Green Porno" by Italian actress/model/philanthropist/director Isabella Rossellini

Here are a series of short clips of her new show "Green Porno 2" featuring primarily sea creatures such as the asexual life of starfish, the protected life of limpets and the bizarre sex life of angler fish. Go here for the general link.

Its short and safe for work unless your office is strict on starfish erotica with people wearing funny costumes!

Go Here for some Hot Starfish Sexfulness!

Some Limpet VaVaVa Voom here!

and...deep-sea Angler Fish Action!

Identifying Deep-Sea Images: What is a Good Photo for ID?

...and pt. 2 of coverage of the Deep-Sea Image Taxonomy Workshop at MBARI!

(from Paul Yancy's deep sea echinoderm page)

Day 2, we saw Echinoderm talks!
Greg Rouse, Professor of Marine Biology at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, gave an awesome talk on deep-sea crinoids...
Followed by myself, and then Dave Pawson, Curator of Echinoderms at the Smithsonian NMNH on deep-sea sea cucumbers...
and finally, echinoderm talks were concluded by Rich Mooi, Curator of Echinoderms at the California Academy of Sciences who talked about deep-sea sea urchins.
Many more invertebrate talks on how to ID deep-sea invertebrates from pictures followed! A list of these can be found here.. I observed substantial crowds around each taxonomic specialist..all from scientists, image managers, and students who wanted the hi-in-demand specialists to help with ID of their images.

As we wrapped up the workshop on Wed...I observed several broad statements from the conference:

What Have We Learned?
1. It is better to be accurate than wrong. It is possible to ID animals from pictures!!
Maybe you can't get any farther then "Asteroidea" from a "bad" fuzzy pictures like this one
But even if you have a sharp, highly detailed pictures like this one

Can you ID species from this? Genus? Family? How many features allow you to do this? Most of the speakers agreed that species were usually not possible unless it was monotypic and the animal in question was both well-known and very distinctive. Better to stay with the most conservative name you can get vs. trying to guess or estimate a name that might be misleading or actually delay its identification.

2. A specimen is need for a proper, accurate identification. Pictures are sometimes ALL that you have, but to get an ID for anything important you often need to examine the fine microstructure to distinguish it from other known species.

(from Paul Yancy's deep sea echinoderm page)

These deep-sea "sea pig" elasiopod cucumbers (Scotoplanes globosa) for example are distinguished based on microscopic calcium carbonate bits called "sclerites" that are in the body wall. These sclerites need to be extracted and prepared in order to tell what species they are.

3. Don't assume that what you're seeing is known. This was another recurrent theme. A great many new species were observed/discovered from video as well as a many behavioral and other fundamental facts about certain species that the taxonomists who worked on the animals had never seen before. Don't just assume that what you've got has been well-known..cause, in most cases, it probably isn't.

In many instances, deep-sea video has often caught the very FIRST time that organism has ever been seen, much less, seen alive.

Overheard...
Finally...On the lighter side, there were many AWESOME anecdotal scientific insights made during the conference (and provided by various sources). Names lost to protect the innocent...

• "They indeed do NOT have an aphrodisiac effect....I've tried it myself"
• "Just a warning, don't try to Google "deep-sea wood" without the filter..you'll just be traumatized"....
• "Oh that? That's just CRUD..." (referring to epizoites on a sponge stalk)
• "I'm THE authority on vent species from my area...that area is,... Chicago!"
• "The learning curve was quite steep, it took me 2 months just to start the analysis"
• (regarding a particular phylogenetic tree) "Well, I got this one on Wikipedia, that's got to be as good as any"
• "He said, that he didn't study blobs-he studied real mollusks!"

I wish to thank Nancy Jacobson-Stout, Linda Kuhnz, Lonny Lundsten at MBARI and support from Malcolm Clark and Mireille Consalvey of CENSEAM for their support of the conference and for making the workshop a smashing success!!

Next week...Back to our regular Echinoderm Insanity!

Deep-Sea Image Taxonomy Workshop!

Greetings!
This week I blog from beautiful, historical Monterey, California where I am attending the Marine Image Analysis Workshop hosted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the Seamount division of the Census of Marine Life (CENSEAM).
So what brings nearly 100 of the world's taxonomic, oceanographic, ecological, and other deep-sea scientists together like this?
Its like this: Global exploration of the deep-sea has expanded and MANY oceanographic, marine resource organizations, and academic institutions have stepped up their usage of video cameras, submersibles and other devices, such that there is a HUGE quantity of high quality video from various surveys and so forth.

For example:
The MBARI video collection ALONE includes

• over 16,000 HOURS of video footage (in standard AND high def!!)
• over 3 MILLION individual observation/notations made since the database began in 1988

There are 70 representatives from 17 countries in attendance ALL representing other institutions with video collections JUST LIKE the one MBARI has! Yow!

So, as part of an effort to recognize the various multitudes of organisms that deep-sea biologists from SEVENTEEN countries have been observing, they have attended this workshop featuring ELEVEN of the world's foremost taxonomic experts on different deep-sea animal groups!!

For example, here we see Dr. Henry Reiswig (from Canada), one of the world's experts on glass sponges (Hexactinellida), expounding on how to identify his favorite animals to an attentive audience...
There are three solid days of workshop.

Day 1 (today-Monday) included sponge presentations by Dr. Reiswig and Dr. Bill Austin we also saw some awesome talks on deep-sea fishes by fish biologist/ecologist Greg Cailliet from Moss Landing Marine Labs, Bob Lea formerly of the National Marine Fisheries, and Tomio Iwamoto, curator of fishes at the California Academy of Sciences.The oral sessions are followed by workshops headed up by the experts, who then proceed to assist in identifications of picture files and discuss the animals. Think of it as sort of "Antiques Roadshow" style...but instead of someone who discusses old antique chairs..its your latest pictures of deep-sea zoarcid fishes!

"Video Taxonomy" is a whole different kettle of fish relative to what most people might be used to when trying to identify the species for a physical specimen. For one thing, there's far MORE video collected then if specimens alone were collected
Observations are annotated and noted on a video notation system. This gives us a whole new dynamic of information (sometimes instead of or in addition to a specimen)...
You can have documentation of something that was DIRECTLY happening vs. a preserved or dead specimen... but also (from the opening address):

• We see the INTACT animal (not often the case in the trawl or otherwise poorly collected animal)
• We quickly discover expanded and accurate bathymetric and other data.
• We can directly observe the habitat associated with the critter
• You can often discover NEW species!
• You can observe BEHAVIOR which wasn't something you could before
• You can observe the organism's interactions with the enviornment

(Strongylocentrotus fragilis from MBARI)

My presentation & all of the echinoderm talks is Tuesday!!!

next week...Blogging from the Deep Sea Image Taxonomy Workshop at MBARI in Monterey, CA!

Next week, I will be attending and blogging from the Marine Image and Analysis Workshop being held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Moss Landing, CA (near Monterey, CA)!!!

(the forcipulate starish Rathbunaster californicus)

This workshop will be sponsored by MBARI

and the Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (CENSEAM)

The workshop's goal?

A gathering of all-star deep-sea biodiversity specialists, in fishes, sponges, corals & sea anemones, worms, crabs, cephalopods, and of course...ECHINODERMS (starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers & crinoids), will lead several sessions on how to identify and recognize deep-sea animals from images, such as this one:

(the crinoid Florometra and the starfish Rathbunaster)

The gathering aspires to share taxonomic knowledge between ELEVEN biodiversity/taxonomic specialists and over 70 participants !! (who hail from a variety of fields) so that an increasing number of persons can recognize the huge amount of life which exists in the deep!

This is something that has become especially important given the huge increase and importance of video and other imagery which has become available from submersibles and other deep-sea imaging.

Looking forward to sharing what I learn and experience from California next week!!

Springtime!

Springtime!!
Neoferdina!!
Springtime!!Neoferdina!!
Neoferdina!!
Springtime!!
This week...some SECRET stuff going on!!!! more on this later!

Next week...Blogging from the Deep-Sea Image Taxonomy Workshop at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Monterey, CA!!

Fun Leptasterias Facts!

What? So, you wanna know more about Leptasterias?

ha! Well, ask an ye shall receive!!!

These are a follow up to the last post and are taken from various papers by Bingham et al. (2004), Foltz et al. (2008) and Pearse & Beauchamp (1986). The best known Leptasterias spp. are the Leptasterias "hexactis" forms from the west coast of North America and Leptasterias polaris in the Arctic/North Atlantic..

(image from Ibarra & Bingham's L. hexactis page)

Leptasterias broods! From the big Arctic L. polaris to the tiny subArctic L. "hexactis" forms...

• The California forms brood from Jan-Feb-March-April and take 6-8 weeks to develop.
• Larger adults produce larger embryos- a doubling of arm radius in brooding females resulted in a 3 to 4 fold increase in egg production.
• Larger females produce more eggs but have a harder time carrying them completely through the brooding season.
• If "quality" and success is related to overall egg volume, then its possible that egg volume an size is possibly a predictor of survival to the juveniles.

Leptasterias brooding posture varies....
The Leptasterias "hexactis" posture......

(from Chia, 1966)

The Leptasterias polaris posture....

(from this website..)

What does Leptasterias eat? Mostly mollusks, barnacles and such...
How long has Leptasterias been around?
Based on some recent work by Dave Foltz and colleagues (including myself) we used several gene markers to estimate how recently the various sister species of Leptasterias diverged!

So, all basically, all of the 'species complex' stuff I wrote about earlier? When did that happen?

That usually suggests a relatively recent speciation time frame. They diversified/speciated/or whatever you want to call it, ONLY about 0.5 to 1.2 Millions of Years Ago (Mya)!

Geologically, that's quite young..but put this into context for people reading this? This starfish likely speciated in the Pleistocene. What else happened in the Pleistocene?

There were glaciers. A LOT of them. Some 30% of Earth was covered by ice.

• Image by Jeff Huffman

What else was alive in the Pleistocene? (Images from Wikipedia)

This little, tiny starfish?? is prolly kinda sorta AS OLD or OLDER THEN HUMANITY (and its pretty young for a starfish!)
....and THAT is the rest of the story!

A Big Deal over a Little Starfish: The Leptasterias Species Complex!!

Ah Spring! As the sun emerges and the tides on the west coast go out, so also the many marine biology students! And so too come the many welcome questions!!
One of the more common questions I've been getting recently has been about this little six-rayed starfish called Leptasterias.....
Its commonly found and is quite a resplendent little animal (in California only about 1-2 cm across).
Leptasterias is quite widespread, extending from the North Atlantic through the Arctic to the cold-temperate North Pacific (Alaska to Southern California). The species in California are nearly always SIX rayed, but the ones in the Arctic and the Atlantic are often five rayed. They are often found to brood eggs and juveniles (but this is a story for another day).

The name "leptos" (in Leptasterias) refers to the Greek for "small, delicate or thin" (with asterias meaning star) alluding to the small, delicate size that many Leptasterias spp. are known for (although some Arctic species can be quite large!)

Leptasterias is a great example of how evolution is both a vexing puzzle and fascinating conundrum for the interested biologist. How can something that is so well known, and play such an important role in our understanding of marine ecology ALSO be so evasive that we don't even know what to call it???

Species in this genus form what is called a species complex. Here is a convenient definition from Wikipedia:

a group of species which satisfy the biological definition of species, that is, they are reproductively isolated from each other, but their morphology is very similar (in some cases virtually identical).

Put another way, this could be interpreted as sort of a "snapshot of evolution" in the works...There is such subtle divergence among closely related species that they we can barely tell them apart!!

Since the late 19th and early 20th Century, scientists, such as pre-eminent starfish biologist Walter K. Fisher at Hopkins Marine Station, have recognized the difficult lines between species along the west coast of North America.
Breaking this down:

• Leptasterias spp. are found in Southern California up through Oregon, Washington to Canada, Alaska (and the Aleutians) up through the Arctic Circle and down into the North Atlantic.
• At the far ends of where they are found they differ substantially.. But between any two "species" that are physically close to one another? The external features that are used to tell them apart becomes REALLY close.
• Several Leptasterias spp. in California for example-L. aequalis, L. pusilla, L. hexactis. All of the names have gone back and forth into synonymy about what is "valid". Walter K. Fisher identified dozens of "forma" and "subspecies" when he formally monographed the species in 1930, making identifications difficult at best.

Figurin' It Out...
In the mid 90s, David Foltz, a population geneticist (and colleague) at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and student Jon Flowers got involved with the Leptasterias questions and he applied a variety of allozyme and later molecular tools towards the many species of Leptasterias and its near kin.
Results can be found in a great many of his papers including this one, this one and this one.

They sampled primarily from Alaska to California and discovered several different lineages of Leptasterias...especially in California where they identified 6 apparently distinct cryptic species in Leptasterias "hexactis" and "aequalis"!!!
So, what do you call these?

Right now, this is a pretty tricky question which I typically answer as good news/bad news.

What's the bad news? We are only at the first step. What comes next is the 'synch' up between the molecular /DNA characterisation of the species in Leptasterias AND the taxonomy.

• More sampling will be needed to further resolve the molecular picture
• More taxonomy will need to be done to follow once the above gets done.

What's the good news? We have a good idea what's going on and it seems pretty clear about what will need to be done.

So, the issue is NOT that the taxonomy itself is hopelessly confused (altho it IS very complicated) but that it just hasn't caught up with some of the more.... formal nomenclatural "loose ends"...Give it time!

Believe it or not, Leptasterias isn't the "worst" species complex problem/question known out there... (either on the west coast of North America or the world....)!!!