Abstract
New research on bryozoans has determined that formerly widespread species are in many cases complexes of similar, but distinct, species with more restricted distributions. Notwithstanding, the limits of distribution are still unresolved for many taxa, and occasionally a wide distribution is confirmed. Beania magellanica has been considered a widespread species, distributed throughout the Southern Hemisphere, parts of northern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. This study examines the Magellanic-type material, together with other historic samples and new specimens collected in the western Mediterranean and Adriatic, and for the first time, presents specimens from the European North Atlantic. Morphological comparisons and biometric analysis show the existence of three different species among the specimens studied. A redescription of B. magellanica based on the type specimen is presented, and two new species are described: B. serrata sp. nov. from the Northeast Atlantic and B. mediterranea sp. nov. from the Mediterranean Sea. These results indicate that B. magellanica s.l. is a large complex of species and that most specimens from different parts of the world must be revised.
Highlights
In the past, many bryozoan species were considered to be widely distributed or even cosmopolitan
We examined the type specimen of B. magellanica, other specimens collected from the Magellan Strait, Argentina, Falkland Islands, and Burdwood Bank, and specimens from Brazil and the Mediterranean Sea currently stored at the National History Museum (NHMUK), London
A cluster with bigger zooids is formed by specimens from the Mediterranean studied here, whereas Atlantic specimens from northern Spain and the type material did not differ significantly, forming another cluster
Summary
Many bryozoan species were considered to be widely distributed or even cosmopolitan. This article is registered in ZooBank under urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub: 7B9741A6-13ED-4FAE-BFE5-A4A92D68254B. In some species, the issue of the wide distribution remains unresolved (Harmelin et al 2012; Cumming and Tilbrook 2014). Wide geographical distributions have been confirmed, for example, in several species of the genera Bugula Oken, 1815
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