Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos, Volume 29 [Memoires Du Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle, Volume 208]

About this book

Language: English

The deep benthos of tropical seas is one of the last frontiers of biodiversity exploration, and a major reservoir of species still unknown to science. The French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) and Institute for Research for Development (IRD) are conducting an unprecedented series of research cruises in the South and West Pacific, totalling so far over 5,000 deep-water sampling stations in remote and seldom-visited island groups. The Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos series, a continuation of the former Résultats des Campagnes Musorstom, showcases some of the biodiversity discovered through contributions from experts worldwide.

The present volume 29 (which is volume 208 in the parent series Mémoires du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle) includes six major taxonomic papers from experts of polyplacophoran, bivalve and gastropod molluscs, together documenting 213 species – 137 of which are new to science –, highlighting the extraordinary biodiversity of the South and West Pacific, in particular the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia. An introductory chapter highlights the role of citizen scientists in describing the molluscan diversity of the world, who are responsible for 57% of the new species descriptions, and the present volume is no exception.

The included DVD-ROM contains PDF versions of the book chapters.

Contents

How many species of molluscs are there in the world’s oceans, and who is going to describe them?   9
      Philippe Bouchet, Sophie Bary, Virginie Héros & Gilberto Marani
New, rare bathyal leptochitons (Mollusca, Polyplacophora) from the South and West Pacific   25
      Boris sirenko
Lucinidae of the Philippines: highest known diversity and ubiquity of chemosymbiotic bivalves from intertidal to bathyal depths (Mollusca: Bivalvia)   65
      Emily A. glover & John D. taylor
Deep-sea wood-eating limpets of the genus Pectinodonta Dall, 1882 (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Patellogastropoda: Pectinodontidae) from the tropical West Pacific   235
      Bruce A. Marshall, Nicolas Puillandre, Josie Lambourdiere, Arnaud Couloux & Sarah Samadi
New genus and new species of Solariellidae (Gastropoda: Trochoidea) from New Caledonia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Philippines, Papua New Guinea and French Polynesia   267
      Claude Vilvens & Suzanne T. Williams
Deep-water Columbellidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from New Caledonia   291
      Kevin Monsecour & David Monsecour
The extensive Indo-Pacific deep-water radiation of Manaria E. A. Smith, 1906 (Gastropoda: Buccinidae) and related genera, with descriptions of 21 new species   363
      Koen Fraussen & Peter Stahlschmidt
Taxonomic index   457

Biography

Virginie Héros and Philippe Bouchet are curators of molluscs at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and Ellen Strong is curator of molluscs at the National Museum of Natural History, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. All three have been involved in the exploring expeditions, from the work at sea to networking worldwide with molluscan taxonomists, that have resulted in the discovery and description of over a thousand new species thus far.