Protosuberites sp.

Turner, Thomas L., Rouse, Greg W., Weigel, Brooke L., Janusson, Carly, Lemay, Matthew A. & Thacker, Robert W., 2024, Taxonomy and phylogeny of the family Suberitidae (Porifera: Demospongiae) in California, Zootaxa 5447 (1), pp. 1-28 : 21-22

Protosuberites sp.

Figure 1–2 , 10

Material examined. TLT443, Elwood Reef, Santa Barbara, (34.41775, -119.90150), 9–15 m, 10/23/19.

Morphology. Thinly encrusting on a small (~ 1 cm) blade of red algae. Bright yellow alive.

Skeleton. Not investigated; the entire sample was consumed for DNA extraction and spicule preparation.

Spicules. Tylostyles, straight or weakly curved. Often with well-formed terminal heads, but a high frequency of heads that are sub-terminal or slightly lumpy. Longer spicules are gently tapering for much of their length, but shorter spicules have a consistent width until tapering sharply at tip. Highly variable in length, but distribution is unimodal. 103–246–474 x 2–4–7 μm (n=43).

Distribution and habitat. Found at a single location, Elwood Reef, a shallow, rocky reef with kelp forest cover near Santa Barbara, California.

Remarks. Thinly encrusting Suberitidae are currently placed in either Terpios or Protosuberites ( Morrow & Cárdenas 2015; van Soest 2002). Though we did not examine the skeleton of this small sponge, we think it is more likely to be in Protosuberites due to the shape of the tylostyles and the lack of gelatinous consistency. DNA supports this placement, as the species falls into a clade containing a worldwide sample of other Protosuberites .

With only a single sample that was consumed without investigating the skeleton, and noting how variable we found spicule lengths to be in S. lambei , we conservatively leave this sample as an unknown for the time being.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum likelihood phylogeny of the 28S locus. Genbank accession numbers and collection locations (when known) are shown; bold indicates new sequences. Asterisks at nodes indicate SH-aLRT ≥ 80% and UFbootstrap ≥ 95%. Scale bar indicates substitutions per site. Asterisks in node names indicate type species of a genus.

FIGURE 2. Maximum likelihood phylogeny of the cox1 locus. Genbank accession numbers and collection locations (when known) are shown; bold indicates new sequences. Asterisks at nodes indicate SH-aLRT ≥ 80% and UFbootstrap ≥ 95%. Scale bar indicates substitutions per site. Asterisks in node names indicate type species of a genus.

FIGURE 10. Protosuberites. A: Protosuberites sisyrnus holotype fragment post-preservation. B: Protosuberites sp. TLT443 before preservation on day of collection. C: Long and short tylostyles from P. sisyrnus. D: Example tylostyle head from Protosuberites sp. TLT443.