Meeting Abstract
Recent surveys indicate that the Verde Island Passage (VIP) in the Philippines has the highest marine biodiversity in the world. One of several phyla that exemplify this remarkable species richness is the Echinodermata, comprising asteroids, ophiuroids, echinoids, holothuroids, and crinoids. The latter are represented in shallow water by the comatulids (feather stars) and are arguably the least known of the phylum in terms of diversity, systematics, and distribution. However, comatulids are important suspension-feeding members of the reef community. There are no baseline studies that attempt to assess diversity of comatulids in the VIP, and without these analyses, it will be impossible to measure impacts of anthropogenic changes on this crucial constituent of the reef ecosystem. As part of a program of collaborative biodiversity assessments conducted by the California Academy of Sciences and its Philippine partner institutions, we collected comatulid crinoids from reefs throughout the VIP. Comatulids are notoriously difficult to identify using morphology alone, so we integrated molecular and morphological techniques to distinguish taxa. We constructed a barcode library using COI to differentiate taxonomic units. Using SEM, we discovered a novel morphological character, pinnular hooks, that can be used to distinguish taxa. Current results suggest that comatulid species richness in the Verde Island Passage will exceed any previous estimates for other locations in the Indo-Pacific region, if not the world. Our integrative approach will facilitate future efforts to identify crinoids in the Philippines as well as aid in our attempts to develop an accurate estimate of their diversity in the VIP.
