Maria del Mar Soler Hurtado

University of Seville, Spain

Wednesday 12 of March 11:00

Sir Neil Chalmers seminar room, Darwin Centre LG16 (below Attenborough studio)

Although abundant, the Eastern Pacific octocoral fauna was considered poorly known by Bayer (1951), mainly due to the difficulty of identification and lack of taxonomic expertise.  In addition, the continuous nature of many of the morphological characters in the taxonomy of the Octocorallia has been a major problem for the systematic study of the group.  For this reason, some authors consider octocoral characters difficult to encode or to polarize, and it is necessary to implement in this family new sources of characters (in all available disciplines) to help us in the correct identification of units (species), in order to develop a more natural classification and phylogeny than that which currently exists, which is seen as clearly artificial yet still in use. In this context, the opportunity to review important collections of gorgoniid specimens deposited in museums, such as the collection available in the NHM, is for us a major step in the development and expansion of our research.  The examination of these type specimens, from a morphological and molecular point of view, will permit their comparison with newly-collected material from Ecuador, the delimitation of specific variability, the re-evaluation of the importance of morphological characters previously used, and the description of new forms where necessary.

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