scamit newsletter vol. 17 no. 11 1999 march · 3 march, 1999 scamit newsletter vol. 17, no.11...

SUBJECT: Non-polychaete problem animals from B’98 sampling.Part II

GUEST SPEAKER: None - Megan Lilly, Discussion Leader

DATE: 19 April 1999

TIME: 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p. m.

LOCATION: City of San Diego Marine Biololgy Lab4918 North Harbor Drive #201San Diego, CA

FUNDS FOR THIS PUBLICATION PROVIDED, IN PART BYTHE ARCO FOUNDATION, CHEVRON, USA, AND TEXACO INC.

SCAMIT Newsletter in not deemed to be valid publication for formal taxonomic purposes.

March, 1999 Vol. 17, No. 11SCAMIT Newsletter

We will continue with our consideration ofproblem taxa encountered in the Bight’98infaunal sampling exclusive of the annelids.Our last meeting merely scratched the surface.We may not finish at this meeting either.Planned topics are the isopod Caecianiropsis,crabs of the genus Deilocerus, the applicationof Dean Pasko’s new Photis key, the sanddollar genus Dendraster, juvenile crabs of thegenus Cancer, Astropecten seastar species,oedicerotid amphipods, the amphipod genusByblis, leucothoid amphipods in solitaryascidians...and more. Bring problem ordemonstration specimens. Please savecnidarian problem animals for the Maymeeting.

Rudilemboides stenopropodusPhoto by Dean Pasko (CSDMWWD)

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March, 1999 Vol. 17, No.11SCAMIT Newsletter

METHODOLOGY ON THE WEB

Member Tom Parker directs our attention to aninteresting website which contains discussionsof and information on preservation ofbiological materials. The site is run by theAmerican Society of Ichthyologists andHerpetologists, and despite their vertebratesubjects, we share an area of interest.

gopher://kaw.keil.ukans.edu:70/hh/curation/ichs_herps/newsletter11

This is an archival site, and the information isnot hot off the presses, but it is still veryvaluable, and worthy of your attention. Ofparticular interest is the preservation methodwhich allows very good to excellent retentionof color in preserved materials.

Another useful information source onpreservation and handling of biologicalspecimens is provided at

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/iz/usap/usapspec.html#top_of _page

This is a set of instructions originally designedfor use with the Polar research programs. Itlays out a series of methods for preservation ofvarious invertebrate phyla. I doubt if there isanything new here for most people, but this is auseful compact presentation on the subject.

MEETINGS

Coastal Zone 99 will be meeting in San Diegothis July 24-29th. As usual, a broad spectrumof topics will be addressed. A number ofworkshops will be held including ones on therole of marine protected areas in coastalmanagement, and one on volunteerism.Questions concerning wastewater discharge,recovery of affected areas, habitat restoration,regional monitoring, and other subjects oftypical SCAMIT concern will be discussed atnumerous sessions. A number of present andpast SCAMIT members will be presentingtalks. On-line registration and information isavailable at

http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~cz99.

A bit further away is the 14-16 July conferenceon Interrelationships of the Platyhelminthes tobe held in London. The conference is organizedby the Linnean Society of London inassociation with the Systematics Association,and the British Society for Parasitology. Thoseinterested in this phylum should find thescheduled talks stimulating at least. Thosewishing to present, or stage a poster still havetime. Poster titles and abstracts must be in toDr. Tim Littlewood, Department of Zoology,The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road,London SW7 5BD [e-mail: [email protected]]prior to 30 April 1999.

NEW LITERATURE

In a continuing series of papers presentingvarious aspects of their multi-year monitoringresults Mauer et al (1998) discuss thedistributions of Spiophanes missionensis [nowS. duplex] and Prionospio sp A [now P. jubata]in the area around the discharge of the OrangeCounty Sanitation Districts. They found thetwo species to be negative and positive(respectively) indicators of the organicenrichment of domestic wastewater discharge.They suggest that the two species in tandem area more sensitive indicator of effect than eitherseparately, regardless of whether the effect wasof human or natural origin.

Unfortunately we here in southern Californiado not encounter gastropods in the genusTrichotropis, which are commonly found inboreal waters north of us. I say unfortunatelyboth because the animals are quite attractive,and now are shown to have interesting habits.Pernet & Kohn (1998) demonstrate that T.cancellata functions not only as a regularsuspension feeder catching particles from thewater column, but also as a kleptoparasitestealing particles from its neighbors. Theirexperiments indicate that parasitism is the mainenergy source for the snails, who make do withsuspension feeding while hosts are unavailable.





http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~cz99

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Several different types of polychaetes werevictimized, including sabellids and sabellariids.The snail inserts it’s pseudoproboscis into theworm’s mouth, and intercepts the incomingstring of food particles streaming down fromthe radioles. This can go on for hours withoutthe worm seeming to be upset about workingfor no gain.

Sponges do not flee, nor do they fight.Gandhi-like they pursue the path of passiveresistance. They also subscribe to the theorythat the best defense is a good defense. Mostuse some form of structural deterrent topredation, usually sharp spicules in variousshapes and densities. Many others opt forchemical warfare, and sponges are verysophisticated chemical factories. Sampling ofsponges for unique new bio- active compoundshas preoccupied the pharmaceutical industryfor several decades. Basic ecological researchhas also benefitted. Becerro et al (1998) reporton the interactions between two different typesof predators, grazing nudibranchs and nippingfishes, with the branching sponge Cacospongiasp. The sponge controls the distribution andconcentration of several secondary metaboliteswhich deter or prevent feeding by one of thetwo predators. Even the lower levels ofsecondary metabolites measured weresufficient to prevent fish nipping of the sponge.The problem of best dealing with thenudibranchs, who utilize the secondarymetabolites to make themselves unpalatable topotential predators, is more complex. ‘At whatconcentration of secondary metabolites can Iminimize nudibranch grazing and alsominimize nudibranch survivorship derivedfrom my accumulated deterrent chemicals?’Tough being a sponge!

Nudibranch taxonomy has always been a bitsoft. It got softer when Schulze & Wägele(1998) investigated morphological variabilityin Flabellina affinis. They found many of thetraditional morphological characters quitevariable in this species. Surprisingly the livingcoloration and color pattern seemed less

variable than most other characters. Theirdetailed investigation of the morphology andhistology of this animal is helpful for anyonedealing with flabellinid taxonomy.

Beare & Moore (1998) present information onthe life history of two oedicerotid amphipods,one of which occurs in California. At least fornow: Bousfield indicated that we probablydidn’t have the same species of Westwoodillathat occurs in the north Atlantic. We are,however, still considering our local species tobe W. caecula, until new information isprovided in a further publication. The authorsfound reproductive females in the W. caeculapopulation throughout the year, althoughreproductive effort seemed concentrated frommidsummer to early autumn. Westwoodillafemales had smaller broods, but suffered lessbrood mortality, than Monoculodes packardi(the other species investigated).

An interesting reproductive pattern for a smallgroup of syllid polychaetes is described byKuper & Westheide (1998). This involvesexternal brooding with eggs attached to theparent by special modified chaetae which differfrom those epitokous swimming setae oftenassociated with reproduction in polychaetes.

Cancer magister juveniles have in the past beenconsidered to be carnivorous. Jensen & Asplen(1998) present observations documenting useof diatoms as food in the field by juvenilecrabs. They also present the results of rearingexperiments using a variety of food substrates,including diatoms.

Introduced species have usually beenconsidered a nuisance (sometimes a damnnuisance in the areas of their greatest impact),but seldom has the economic consequence oftheir presence been calculated. Pimentel et al(1999) do so. Preliminary calculations areoffered for a number of different types of non-indigenous species in both terrestrial andaquatic habitats in the U.S.. The authors pointout that there have been positive, intentional,introductions of non-indigenous species. Food

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crops which originated in other parts of theworld now account for 98% of the agriculturalproduction in this country. Estimated negativeimpacts tote up to about $122 billion per yearcurrently, an amount that continued efforts tocontrol non-indigenous species should reducein future. The trend over the past 30 years orso has been one of increase, however.

Competition with introduced species is not theonly cause of distress to native populations.Frequently problems can be laid to otherhuman influences. In a fairly exhaustiveconsideration of crustacean fisheries in theGulf of Alaska, Orensanz et al (1998) discussthe collapse of a broad spectrum of exploitedpopulations. A combination of over fishing andmanagement approach seems involved. Theauthors make some suggestions aimed atpreventing such economic catastrophes in thefuture.

An instructive example from the freshwaterliterature considers another alternative tocompetition with an invader; habitatmodification. Beckett et al (1998) documentthe history of disappearance of one amphipodtaxon in the Ohio River, and its replacement byanother. This was originally undertaken withthe idea that either there had been acompetitive displacement by an introducedanimal, or that there had been taxonomic driftin the identification of the samples. Neitherproved to be the case. The identifications hadbeen correct and verified, and the originalspecies Crangonyx pseudogracilis, had diedout over a year before the first occurrence ofthe replacement species in the sampling area.Based on the pattern of retreat of Crangonyx inthe years before its local extinction, the authorshypothesize that the change was caused by theconstruction of dams on the river, whichchanged the flowrate to one disfavoring thisamphipod.

OLD LITERATURE

Don Cadien is happy to report that hepurchased the Jan Stock/Universiteits Museumvan Amsterdam duplicate reprint collection.This collection, which resulted from integrationof Jan Stock’s reprints with those of theUniversiteits Museum (Dr. Stock died early in1998), was offered by Dr. Dirk Platvoet on theCrustL listserver late in January. The majorityof the collection arrived on a plane early inMarch. A set of Dr. Stock’s currently availablereprints and the duplicates from hispycnogonid literature are still to arrive. Thecollection was estimated to be over 7000 items,nearly all dealing with crustacean taxonomy orecology. No list of what was contained in thecollection was available at time of purchase, soarrival of the material itself was anxiouslyawaited. A listing of the titles represented(although not of the material still to arrive) hasnow been prepared in ProCite® format. Manyof the individual titles were duplicated. Theseduplicates will be made available in the nearfuture. Areas particularly well represented werethose on which Dr. Stock himself concentrated;copepod parasites of invertebrates, freshwateramphipods of Europe, and the troglobitic,cavernicolous, anchialine, and interstitial faunaof the tropical west Atlantic. To this will beadded the pycnogonids, when those boxesarrive.

Discoveries among this material will begradually appearing in these pages as Don hasa chance to read them and determine theirrelevance to SCAMIT. There are many novelitems, including drafts and page proofs, as Dr.Stock served as editor, member of the editorialboard, or reviewer for several journals.

22 MARCH MINUTES

The meeting was called to order by soon-to-be-outgoing Vice-President Don Cadien(CSDLAC) at approximately 9:45 am. Donreminded members present of the upcomingChannel Islands Conference at the SantaBarbara Museum of Natural History. This

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conference is relatively unique in thatattendance is free. Costs are borne by theMMS. The Species 2000 workshop was alsomentioned. See the February NL for details.

A request for pinnotherid/worm commensalswas discovered on the Annelida List Server.Scott Harrison at Texas A&M is researchingpinnotherids and is particularly interested intheir association with polychaetes. He wouldprefer specimens fixed in 100% ethanol, butwill take any he can get. Scott is willing tocover the costs of shipping and handling.Contact him at [email protected], or bymail at Department of Biology, Texas A & MUniversity, College Station, TX 77843-3258, ortelephone at 409-845-0168.

Don then brought our attention to the fundingcrisis at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii andencouraged all to write letters in support of theMuseum. Many institutions are having theirpublic funding restricted, reduced, oreliminated. This is just a particularly severecase. More information and means ofcontacting them were listed in the FebruaryNL.

The upcoming election was discussed, and itwas then reiterated that we still did not have avice presidential candidate for SCAMIT(fortunately we now do, please see theattatched ballot). There was a call for furthernominations without much success. Candidatestatements were circulated in the February NL,and the ballots are attached to this newsletter.All voting is by printed ballot only, e-mail andother on-line voting is not permitted. We urgeyou all to express yourself fully on the ballot,although -once again-, it’s a small universe ofcandidates. If you have suggestions for theofficers include them on the ballots. All of youplease consider running yourself next time out,or write yourself in on the present ballots.SCAMIT needs your involvement in as many

ways as possible for its continuation andgrowth. If you have ideas about how we canchange for the better; get elected andimplement them!

With the business aspect of the meetingconcluded we dove into the taxonomy of theB’98 infauna. Don started with the spongesstating that their ID level will stay at Porifera,unless it is a readily identifiable species. Mostof the sponges encountered in the Bight’98sampling came from either San Diego Bay, orthe Channel Islands. As Don Cadien examinedthe samples from both the Wrigley Institute andthe Northern Channel Island National MarineSanctuary, he met with Dean Pasko and MeganLilly (CSDMWWD) earlier, and went over thesponges. Level of identification was not asmuch a concern as preventing the use of morethan one name for any given species in thedatabase. Many of the species encounteredwere only provisionally identified, althoughsome were taken to species. These taxa can beretained in the final data analysis, since qualityassurance measures were applied prior to datasubmission.

As for the Cnidarians, the Anthozoa -Edwardsiidae and Ceriantharia are to be pulledand set aside for member John Ljubenkov toID. Unfortunately, all other families, orders,etc are to be handled in-house by participatingagencies. We are hoping the May meeting willhave the authors of the Cnidarian section of theMMS Atlas in attendance. The meeting willcover not only species which are in the Atlas,but also those species which are not. It wasfelt by some members present that many of theanthozoa identifications will end up atActinaria sp. This is a difficult group at best,and the varied success of labs in working themup generally dictates that the data must bereduced to lowest common denominator priorto analysis.

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A call for difficult Platyhelminthes ( well, allof them are difficult, but some more so) wasthen put forth. Dean Pasko showed aninteresting flat worm from San Diego Baywhich was heavily pigmented and bore nuchaltentacles. At this point it is still unnamed, asno one present instantly recognized it asoccurring in their samples. No other differentflatworms had been found among the Bight’98infaunal samples to date.

Nemerteans were next on the list. There is stillsome discussion as to what level ofidentification one should strive to take thenemerteans. There was some problem with thisduring the 1994 SCBPP and attempts are beingmade not to duplicate it this time around. DeanPasko had a strange/new nemertean which atthis point will remain at Lineidae. Dean isworking on an ID sheet for this animal.

Nothing unusual was noted for Sipunculids atthis time from Bight’98 benthic samples, butboth San Diego and LA County have newlyencountered species in their regularmonitoring.

An alert concerning echiurans. Don Cadienasked us all to be on the look out forListriolobus hexamyotus. It is usually found inthe mouths of bays and estuaries and lookssimilar to our common offshore L. pelodes.Separation of the two is quite simple, and canbe done externally. It depends on the count oflongitudinal muscle bands; six in hexamyotus,and eight in pelodes. With sampling inshallower waters, and areas aroundrivermouths, our likelihood of encounteringthis species is increased. Under normalcircumstances L. pelodes is so easilyrecognizable that we seldom confirm it’sidentity. Listriolobus hexamyotus looks justabout the same as its congener, but differs inlongitudinal muscle band count, and innephridia number.

Molluscs were next on the agenda. KelvinBarwick had brought three different animals tobe considered. One of them was the newspecies of Daphnella which graced the cover ofthe January NL. This species is to be describedby Dr. Jim McLean in his long anticipatedCalifornia mollusk monograph. The secondanimal considered had been very common inSan Diego Bay samples. It was a smalljuvenile of Saxidomus nuttallii. Juveniles ofthis species look nothing like the adult, havingonly the finest concentric microsculpture, andbearing distinctive rows of dark brown chevronmarks descending from the umbos on both theanterior and posterior slopes. The shape of thejuvenile also differs from that of the adult;small juveniles are nearly circular, with centralumbos. As the juveniles grow, the umbos moveprogressively forward as the posterior portionof the valves grows allometrically relative tothe rest of the clam.

The third questionable animal was a tinyjuvenile Chione sp., also from San Diego Bay.A discussion then ensued regarding the size atwhich young Chione can be confidentlyidentified to species. Don recommended thatanimals below 10 -12 mm be kept at Chione sp.Juvenile Chione fluctifraga may be identifiableto species at slightly smaller sizes, due to theirunique sculpture. Difficulty in separating verysmall Chione from tiny Protothaca spp. wasalso discussed. The only method mentioned toaccomplish this separation was relative shape.Very small Chione tend to be nearly circular,with central umbos. Very small Protothaca aremore oval, and often nearly rectangular.

Two small clams from Northern ChannelIslands samples were mentioned. The first wasNutricola [previously Psephidia] lordi, and thesecond is as yet unidentified. The Nutricolawere mentioned only because they seem to bequite common in the coarse island-shelfsediments. The other tiny clam was representedby two specimens, one only 2mm, the othernearly twice that size. Both are characterizedby their sculpture of flattened concentric

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ridges. The smaller animal had been removedfrom it’s shell, and the hinge and pallial sinusexamined. They were still not fully formed,and almost surely differ from those in the adult.Both were suggestive of the white surf clam,Amiantis callosa. Without a growth series toconnect the juveniles with the adult, noidentification at this size can be more than aneducated guess. Inquiries of Paul ValentichScott at the Santa Barbara Natural HistoryMuseum found that the smallest animal theyhave in their collection identified as Amiantis is10mm long. Not close enough. At present thisspecies is retained as Veneridae unidentified.Perhaps more material will allow the dots to beconnected. Kelvin Barwick (CSDMWWD) waskind enough to digitize several shots of thesetiny clams. The result presented the concentricsculpture and overall shape nicely.

Don mentioned encountering a seldom seen (inour area) tusk-shell species in the coarsesediments of the northern Channel Islands,Antalis pretiosum. He gave a brief review ofthe characters which he uses to separate thescaphopods, particularly the dentaliids. Hestressed the importance of shell curvature, shellmicrosculpture, cross-sectional shape, shellthickness, and (where present) terminal slits.Since slits are often decollated with juvenileportions of the shell, their absence is notinformative. When present, however, they canassist in separating otherwise similar species.The species keyed out properly in Shimek’snew key (Shimek 1998).

It was then time for a brief, but enjoyablelunch. Upon our return the crustaceans weredelved into with fervor.

Don Cadien brought specimens of Photiselephantis for Dean to review. He had not seenthe species before, and will have to modify hiskey slightly to accommodate the male/femaledifferences in P. elephantis.

We next considered the problem ofRudilemboides stenopropodus vsRudilemboides sp A. Dean Pasko had onlyseen sp A offshore, but Bight’98 has providedhim with plenty of material from San DiegoBay referable to R. stenopropodus. He has yetto find a way to distinguish females of the twotaxa, but males can be separated on the basis ofthe structure of the gnathopod 1. Don Cadienindicated that the only species taken off PalosVerdes was R. stenopropodus, and that he hadnot encountered R. sp A in CSDLAC sampling.

Synchelidium spp were next discussed. Thereare problems with the SCAMIT sheetdescription of S. rectipalmum varying from theoriginal description in terms of the condition ofthe 2nd pleonal epimeron and lobe on article 2of the 7th leg which were pointed out by DeanPasko. This species is the only local specieswhos ID is fairly straight-forward and simple;it shouldn’t be problematic.

Don Cadien pointed out the difficulty ofdetermining transverse vs. moderately obliquepalm. How do we define the orientation? Thisquestion has considerable importancethroughout this family, and really throughoutthe Amphipoda. No concrete definitions wereproposed, and we are going to think about theproblem, and hopefully answer it at the nextmeeting.

We examined the S. rectipalmum specimen tosee what characters were present on theuropods. Don is attempting to evaluate the useof number, location, and orientation of stoutsetae (spines in traditional parlance) and cuticleserrations on the uropodal rami. While thesedetails require examination at 400x on acompound scope, they are generally visible in awhole-mount preparation, and consequentlydemand little manipulation of these smallanimals. Many specimens of both sexes of asmany different “species” as possible must be

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examined before these character states can beeither accepted as useful or dismissed asinvariant between taxa or too variable within ataxon.

Those whose sampling areas do not normallyinclude coarse substrates may be encounteringthe amphipod genus Tiron for the first time.There are two species locally, both of whichare turning up in the Bight’98 samples from thenorthern Channel Islands. The two can be toldapart easily on the basis of the dactyls of thelegs. They are normal and slightly curved in T.biocellata; and reduced, stubby, nearly sub-chelate in T. tropakis. The two also differ intelson setation, with T. biocellata bearing onlyone or so small stout setae near its distal end,and T. tropakis with two rows of stout setaeextending most of the length of the telson inthe female. The male T. tropakis has much thesame telsonic setation as T. biocellata. Bothspecies are included in Barnard’s 1972 key ,but full illustrations of T. biocellata are only inBarnard 1962. Both species share the arrestingcharacteristic of having a pair of ommatideasitting side by side near the bottom of thecephalon, far removed from the majority of theeye. These must serve some special purpose,but no explanation has yet been offered.

Tim Stebbins preliminarily reported on hisexamination of the species in the genusParacerceis, whose females are generallyconsidered to be inseparable. Tim hasborrowed material of P. sculpta, P. gilliana, andP. cordata from the Natural History Museum ofLos Angeles County, and is reviewing thismaterial to improve our ability to distinguishthese widely occurring animals. Although theirpresence in samples from San Diego Bay inBight’98 provided the impetus for this review,they also occur offshore in a number ofsituations. Tim also examined the specimensof Paracerceis sp A SCAMIT which DonCadien brought down. He doubted that thespecimens from southern California were thesame as those reported by Brusca from the

Gulf of California. Tim seemed to think thatcharacters could be found for accurateseparation of females, but it will take somework.

A specimen of presumed to be Caecianiropsiswas examined. It also came from a sample at95m off the West end of San Miguel Id. Asingle individual was found. Problem -although the presumptive genus is blind (as inthe Caec of the name), this animal has eyespotsquite visible through the cephalon. It is alsopretty large. Don Cadien will attempt toretrieve other specimens identified asCaecianiropsis from CSDLAC and fromcollections made at offshore dumpsites in1982. He will bring this material to the nextmeeting, where the question of what this thingis can be addressed. He doubts that it is thesame as the intertidal form described frombeach interstitia in Tomales Bay, but thatremains a possibility. In the past it has beenrecorded as that species, Caecianiropsispsammophila, or as either C. nr. psammophilaor C. sp. when taken offshore.

We reviewed differences between the twospecies of Deilocerus, and examined a lotfrom off San Miguel which has both speciesrepresented. Normally the two are found indifferent depth horizons, with D. planusinshore on coarse bottoms, and D. decorusoffshore. Their co- occurrence in a singlesample from 95 m is interesting, and providesthe rare opportunity to review their differenceswithout worrying about either geographic orecophenotypic variability. Both sexes wererepresented at several sizes, so growth relateddifferences were also available for study. DonCadien thinks he has a different set ofcharacters to separate the two species whichcan be used for all but the smallest individualsof both sexes. Unfortunately we ran out oftime, and will continue at the next meeting.

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[You may have noted that a few names wererepeated over and over in the minutes of thelast meeting. Well, we could only report whatwas said by attendees. If your name shouldhave been there, and your comments reported,why weren’t you there? We should be reportingcomments by a number of participants at eachof these meetings. Diversity of experience andopinion serves us all. I hope more of you canmake meetings in future. Those of you toodistant to attend should realize the newsletter isas close as your computer (or your writingdesk). We value your input, and solicit it. - theEditor.]

My Life as a Biologist

Donald J. Reish

Chapter 13: Conclusion of my SC andHancock days

I had a pollution grant from the US PublicHealth Service with a 3 year initial period anda 2 year continuation. The total for the 5 yearswas $35,000 which included SC’s overhead.My salary was $5000 a year which ended up as$6500 at the beginning of my 5th year. Iconducted 3 benthic surveys in LA-LB Harborsin 1954 and one in 1955. Many people helpedme take the samples including Jerry Barnard,Keith Woodwick, and my brother. They helpedwithout pay. Results of the 1954 surveys werepublished in the Hancock Occasional Paperseries in 1959. I divided the harbors into 5ecological zones based on species composition.These divisions were based on myunderstanding of the animals and theirenvironment, and not on any statisticalanalysis. The uniqueness of the publication isthat I was able to include all the raw data.Years later Don Boesch used my data for hisEPA—US Army Corps publication on clusteranalysis. My results and his cluster analysisagreed almost 100%. I have often expressedmy opinion that a person knowledgeable of theenvironment does not really need statistics. I

do, however, realize that statistics have becomea necessity today. I think back to mydissertation days when I had to use a slide ruleto do chi square analyses.

Bob Menzies had gone to Scripps on softmoney after completion of his doctorate. Hetold me that Bob Parker was conducting asurvey around the mouth of the MississippiRiver and needed help in identifyingpolychaetes. It was my first consulting job; Iwas paid $3.00 per hour. I was still inHartman’s lab and I didn’t tell her what I wasdoing since she did not believe in getting paidto identify worms. You should do it for thelove of the worms! In that collection I found anew species, Cossura delta, which I described.Hartman never commented about the speciesnor questioned the source of the material. Itwas the first new species that I had done on myown. Chuck Horvath had a consulting job inthe West Basin of LA harbor where a creosotecompany stored its pilings. He turned the jobover to me when he went to the Arctic.Wooden blocks were suspended in the waterand checked monthly for wood borers. He hadused weights, but when I needed additionalones, I used a gallon jar. In late 1953 I lookedat the mud which had accumulated in the jarand discovered Neanthes caudata which laterbecame known as N. arenaceodentata. Herpinhad published on the earlier stages of the wormand I completed the life cycle and published inPacific Science. I then placed gallon jars allaround the harbor and studied polychaetesettlement and related it to areas of pollution. Ipublished the findings in California Fish &Game. Many of my ideas for the use of gallonjars came from the monograph of GunnarThorson. I met him on 3 or 4 occasions; hewas a very dynamic person and one who wouldtalk with any and all.

During one of these talks he wondered whypolychaetes were so numerous in the benthosof southern California but not in the Danishseas. I had read some of Petersen’s benthicstudies of the early 1900s, and, believe it or

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not, one morning while taking a shower, theanswer came to me. The Danes used a largescreen to wash their sediments and we used afiner one. I then loaded up my car with gallonjars, formalin, and an orange peel bucket andheaded down to Alamitos Bay (Basin 1had justbeen dredged from land a few months earlier).I washed the sediment through a series of Tylersieves, and identified and counted the animalsretained on each sieve. I published the resultsin Ecology and this paper is still being cited.No one had ever thought of the importance ofthe mesh size before. Maybe I should takeshowers more often!!!

The 5 years I was on the US Public HealthService grant afforded me many opportunitiesto do exploratory research. I cultured manydifferent polychaetes including Capitella,Ophryotrocha, and Ctenodrilus. As I hadwritten earlier, I realized something wasstrange about Capitella, but I really didn’tgrasp the picture. I was also able to publishmany papers during this time, and I believe that

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BARNARD, J. LAURENS. 1962. Benthic marine Amphipoda of southern California: familiesTironidae to Gammaridae. Pacific Naturalist 3(2):73-115.

—. 1972. A review of the family Synopiidae (=Tironidae), mainly distributed in the deep sea(Crustacea: Amphipoda. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 124:1-94.

BEARE, D. J. & P. G. Moore. 1998. The life histories of the offshore oedicerotids Westwoodillacaecula and Monoculodes packardi (Crustacea: Amphipoda) from Loch Fyne, Scotland.Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 78:835-852.

BECERRO, MIKEL A., Valerie J. Paul & John Starmer. 1998. Intracolonial variation inchemical defenses of the sponge Cacospongia sp. and its consequences on generalist fishpredators and the specialist nudibranch predator Glossodoris pallida. Marine EcologyProgress Series 168:187-196.

BECKETT, DAVID C., Philip A. Lewis & James H. Green. 1998. Where have all the Crangonyxgone? The disappearance of the amphipod Crangonyx pseudogracilis, and subsequentappearance of Gammarus nr. fasciatus, in the Ohio River. American Midland Naturalist139:201- 209.

JENSEN, GREGORY C. & Mark K. Asplen. 1998. Omnivory in the diet of juvenile dungenesscrab, Cancer magister Dana. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology226:175-182.

KUPER, MICHAEL & Wilfried Westheide. 1998. External gestation in exogonine syllids(Annelida: Polychaeta): dorsal egg attachment by means of epitokous chaetae.Invertebrate Biology 117(4):299-306.

it gave me the opportunity to develop a“publication” habit which has resulted in mypublishing at least one paper per year since myfirst one in 1950.

Jerry Barnard and I ate lunch together forseveral years including our post-doctoralperiod. We talked about many things andthought it would be great to do a “Light’sManual” for southern California. We discussedhow we would do this; of course we never did,but it was always on my mind and was the seedfor my “Marine Life of Southern California.”More on this at a later chapter.

Next: I accept a position at Long Beach State.

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MAUER, DON, Tom gerlinger, & Hai Nguyen. 1998. The response of two spionid polychaetesto natural processes and anthropogenic activities on the San Pedro shelf, California.Ophelia 48(3):185-206.

ORENSANZ, J. M., Janet Armstrong, David Armstrong, & Ray Hilborn. 1998. Crustaceanresources are vulnerable to serial depletion - the multifaceted decline of crab and shrimpfisheries in the greater Gulf of Alaska. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 8:117-176.

PERNET, BRUNO & Alan J. Kohn. 1998. Size-related obligate and facultative parasitism in themarine gastropod Trichotropis cancellata. Biological Bulletin 195:349-356.

PIMENTEL, DAVID, Lori Lach, Rudolfo Zuniga & Doug Morrison. 1999. Environmental andEconomic costs associated with non-indigenous species in the United States. CornellUniversity News Service Jan 1999 Releases: 12pp. [available through http://www.news.cornell.edu].

SCHULZE, ANJA & Heike Wägele. 1998. Morphology, anatomy and histology of Flabellinaaffinis (Gmelin, 1791)(Nudibranchia, Aeolidoidea, Flabellinidae) and its relation to otherMediterranean Flabellina species. Journal of Molluscan Studies 64:195-214.

SHIMEK, RONALD L. 1998. Chapter 4. Class Scaphopoda. Pp. 75-96 IN: Valentich Scott, Paul& James A. Blake (eds.). Taxonomic Atlas of the Benthic Fauna of the Santa MariaBasin and the Western Santa Barbara Channel. Volume 8, The Mollusca Part 1 - TheAplacophora, Polyplacophora, Scaphopoda, Bivalvia, and Cephalopoda. Santa BarbaraMuseum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, Ca. 250pp.


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scamit newsletter vol. 17 no. 11 1999 march · 3 march, 1999 scamit newsletter vol. 17, no.11...

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