Taxonomy review of the family Cerianthidae (Cnidaria; Anthozoa; Ceriantharia) based on morphology and molecular data

• Grant number: 14/08276-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2014
• End date: November 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Sérgio Nascimento Stampar
• Grantee: Paulo Eduardo Benetti de Arruda
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The taxonomy has always been very important for biological knowledge over time. One of the groups that currently have a large amount of taxonomic studies is Cnidaria, a phylum that includes a lot of life forms. Among the classes of this phylum, Anthozoa has the greatest number of species. This class is divided by recent phylogenetic proposal into three subclasses, Octocorallia, Hexacorallia and Ceriantharia. Ceriantharia, known as tube anemones or cerianthids, is certainly the clade with fewer studies. The best known group among cerianthids is family Cerianthidae, especially by the large number of species in that family. Yet few characters used to delimit species/genera in that group were discussed in general, and in the last 100 years almost nothing has been discussed on their relevance to the taxonomy. This study aims to revisit the taxonomic characters of family Cerianthidae. This project will address all known genera of this family and it will try to discuss the relevance of these characters for the systematics of the group. Based on this study (literature review and analysis of materials) it will be possible to propose new approaches on taxonomic studies. Techniques of molecular markers will also be used to discriminate genera and thus produce a landmark to help in the identification of these. At the end, a phylogeny based on morphological and molecular data will be proposed for family Cerianthidae. (AU)