KOHN, A.J.*; DUDA, T.F. Jr.; Univ. of Washington; Smithsonian Tropical Research Station: Genetic, morphological and ecological differentiation in Conus ebraeus, a Pan-Indo-Pacific zoogeographic species

We examined Conus ebraeus, the most widely distributed zoogeographic species in the largest marine genus, for evidence of cryptic biodiversity. Individuals sampled over most of the entire range (Hawaii to Seychelles) are genetically almost identical (average 16S rDNA distance is 0.2%). However, differences in 16S rDNA sequences (mean distance 3.6%) and in conotoxin expression patterns suggested species-level differentiation, i.e. the presence of a distinct, sympatric species within the C. ebraeus complex in Okinawa, Japan. Shell and radular tooth characters of this putative sibling species support this hypothesis. They also agree with Rudolf Bergh�s 1895 description of C. judaeus, distinguished solely on the basis of radular tooth characters but universally synonymized under C.ebraeus by all subsequent taxonomists. We thus conclude that Bergh�s species is valid, although the provenance of his specimen is unknown. In order to determine the geographic range of C. judaeus, we have begun to examine specimens apparently of C. ebraeus from other tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean sites. To date, we have found C. judaeus in samples from Seychelles, but not from Panama, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, Papua New Guinea, or the Chagos Islands. Comparative data on use of habitat and food resources will be used to test the hypothesis that ecological character displacement between the sympatric species has resulted in resource partitioning.