Biogeoinformatics of sea anemones and other hexacorals

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; 3 April 2003

Photograph by George Miller

LargeSEA ANEMONES (and their friends)

Photograph by Louisa Preston

Photograph by Jerry Allen

AN UNLIKELY-LOOKINGANEMONE (to learn more about it, come to the colloquium on 17 April)

Photograph by Adorian Ardelean

Photographs by Bernard Picton

Anemones of more typical size (to 1 cm long)

WHAT ARE HEXACORALS?(to a biologist)

1. Cnidarians --

2. Of class Anthozoa which comprises two subclasses

HEXACORALLIA (Zoantharia) and OCTOCORALLIA (Alcyonaria)

Photos by George Miller

SCLERACTINIA

ANTIPATHARIA

CERIANTHARIA

Photos by George Miller

CORALLIMORPHARIA

ZOANTHIDEA

Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals (http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Hexacoral/)

An on-line information resource system that consists of

two interactive databasesone dealing with taxonomy and biogeography of

hexacorals (corals, sea anemones, and their allies) one dealing with environmental information for the marine

environment

both served and linked by front ends offering user support for searching, analyzing, and downloading the data

SOMETHING ABOUT THE STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS OF “HEXACORAL”

SOMETHING ABOUT HOW MY COLLABORATORS AND I USE IT

Technical details: Oracle, ColdFusion, ArcIMS

Three instances – present, past, and future

973 genera and 7706 binomens and trinomens

2620 original descriptions 2772 valid species

2487 type specimen lots (on line; nearly as many to be entered)

5316 images

Literature-derived, specimen-based taxonomic and distributional data

Holdings are most complete for the soft-bodied taxa, but data on Scleractinia are expanding rapidly and in coordination with NMITA

SOURCES OF TAXONOMICALLY AND GEOGRAPHICALLY

RESOLVED DATA

Museum specimens

Published literature

Field work

SOURCES OF TAXONOMICALLY AND GEOGRAPHICALLY

RESOLVED DATA

Museum specimens

Published literature

Field work

INITIAL SEARCH PARAMETERS

TAXONOMICSEARCH

**

*

THE BASIC INFORMATION

Syngrapha synonymy tool with both graphical and tabular outputs

developed by Adorian Ardelean

fully implemented for actinians

being applied to other groups as the database expands

Occurrence records displayed on a map use symbols of a different color for each synonymous name. This function can be used for investigating whether a synonymy is justified.

For taxa with georeferenced records, a query of the companion global 30’ environmental database produces summaries of general environmental conditions for individual entries or a summary for the taxon

A RESEARCH TOOL

to predict habitats that might be vulnerable to invasion

to know where to conduct field work

originalphotomicrographs of type material

illustrationsfrom originaldescriptions

originalphotos of type specimens

IMAGES

INITIAL SEARCH PARAMETERS

The combined search page yields an extended form of the “Hexacoral” species data link page

Joint search products

Classification from Hexacoral Images from NMITA

Joint search products

“Hexacoral” dynamic location maps of NMITA fossil occurrences

NMITA stratigraphy

Interoperation

• allows users to o obtain and interrelate more data o analyze those data using more toolso formulate and address broad-scale questions

• avoids duplication of effort in database entry

• provides a double-check on data accuracy (aids in detecting errors, inconsistencies) and thereby improves data quality

• increases accessibility and reaches a broader community, bridging bio- and geo-informatics

An On-line Atlas of Marine Diversity

Fish Net, and a growinginventory of others

A biogeographictale of two taxa

(in three databases)

Peder SandheiJay Baker(DBI00-97223)

10 SPECIES OF HOST ANEMONES

Anemones of most host species seldom occur without fish symbionts

Anemonefish never occur without a host anemone (in nature)

TEST FOR ACCURACY

TEST FOR ACCURACY

“NOTHING YET”

1872-1876

University of Kansas Digital Library Initiative to DGF, R. W. Buddemeier, S. Goodwin Thiel, with collaboration of J. Wood

Sea anemones were collected from about 31 of 504 stations

Other databases contain data for other stations -- and those without certainly could use them

This prototype will becomea tool to link OBIS data, and will be extended to other expeditions

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: REASSEMBLE NET CONTENTS

Stations will be searchable by number, date, location, and in two map forms – scanned and hot-linked images of original charts, and ArcIMS to provide data on environmental variables from point samples and other sources

Prototype example

Data recorded for each station are being linked to user-selectable data on recent environmental conditions from the Hexacoral 30’ database (>200 variables)

= 24.9o C

= 24.9o C

To test for quality and consistency of both and provide temporal and spatial environmental connections

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: COMPARE EMPIRICAL WITH MODELED DATA -- Reynolds 2o (1854-2002) and Hadley Centre 1o (1871-2002) reconstructed monthly SST averages include the Challenger years

We know where animals live and have lived

We know conditions characterizing those places

We have forecasts of future conditions so we can predict what will (or will not) live in those places

Northern Hemisphere Average Surface Temperature

1000 14001200 1600 1800 2000

0

1

-1

2

YearMann et al. (1999) GRL 26:759-762

°C

1998

In the space of 150 years, atmospheric temperatures have increased beyond the range of past natural variations and also beyond the range of uncertainty in those variations

Endosymbiotic dinoflagellates

=

Symbiosis break-down is a sign of stress (e.g. abnormally high or low temperature or salinity)

BLEACHING

it would take A LOT of heat to warm the adjacent waters sufficiently for them to be hospitable to reef-forming corals

No because

shallow seas in the immediately adjacent higher latitudes have little suitable substrate

And that’s not all…………

In 150 years, humans have driven atmospheric composition well outside the stable multi-million year range of oscillation

Vostok ice core records

So, temperature is making equatorial latitudes inhospitable to reef-forming corals, but higher latitudes have too little calcium carbonate for them

IN 50 YEARS

SCLERACTINIACORALLIMORPHARIA

SCLERACTINIACORALLIMORPHARIA

Photograph by George Miller

Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals

www.kgs.ku.edu/Hexacoral

Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals

www.kgs.ku.edu/Hexacoral

NMITA Hexacorallia

Application Oracle Oracle

Front end SQL-Plus/HTML ColdFusion

Model basis Species Species

Source of data Specimens Literature

Geographic coverage Tropical America Worldwide

Geological coverage Neogene to Recent Recent

Maps Static, using ARC/INFO Dynamic, using ESRI ArcIMS

Tools Polly-Clave (identification keys in Delta format); glossary linked to keys, taxon coverage

Syngraph (synonymies); LOICZView (clusters environmental data)

Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America

University of Iowa, <nmita.geology.uiowa.edu> contains taxonomic and stratigraphic information on neotropical fossils Including corals, mollusks, bryozoans, etc.

Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorallia

University of Kansas, <www.kgs.ukans.edu/Hexacoral>contains data on taxonomy and biogeography of living corals and their allies, plus environmental parameters.

PREDICTED FURTHER DISTRIBUTION