Taxonomy, Biology and Evolution of Cephalopods

A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Marine Diversity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 10849

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Institute of Evolution & Marine Biodiversity (IEMB), Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China
2. Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China
Interests: cephalopod taxonomy; diversity; mollusca genetic; cephalopoda

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Guest Editor
College of Animal Science and Technology, Anhui Agriculture University, Hefei 230036, China
Interests: biodiversity genomics; molecular evolution

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cephalopods are known as intelligent invertebrates, having evolved a complex nervous system and an extraordinary coloration strategy that can serve as means of camouflage and communication. The Cephalopoda comprises more than 800 known species in two extant subclasses: Coleoidea, which includes octopus, squid, cuttlefish; and Nautiloidea, which are often considered “living fossils”.  Animals in this class have also adapted to various environments, from tropics to the polar regions, from pelagic to the benthic habitats, from surface waters to the deep seas. Considering their remarkable innovations in body plan and evolution, we present this Special Issue to collect the new studies and advances in understanding the diversity and the biology of cephalopods. The scope includes, but is not limited to, the following aspects: taxonomy, species diversity, population genetics, conservation, evolutionary history, and behavioral biology.

Prof. Dr. Xiaodong Zheng
Dr. Ran Xu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • cephalopods
  • taxonomy
  • biodiversity
  • conservation
  • ecology
  • evolution
  • genetics

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 16616 KiB  
Article
Morphological Characteristics and DNA Barcoding of the Rare Blanket Octopus Tremoctopus violaceus (Cephalopoda: Tremoctopodidae) in the Adriatic Sea
by Mirela Petrić, Branko Dragičević, Rino Stanić and Željka Trumbić
Diversity 2023, 15(6), 794; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15060794 - 20 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1289
Abstract
Tremoctopods are epipelagic argonautoid octopods characterized by their expanded dorsal webs and strong sexual size dimorphism, with dwarfed males. The scarcity of taxonomic features attributed to this genus presents a challenge, and there is growing evidence of species misidentification in Tremoctopus genus on [...] Read more.
Tremoctopods are epipelagic argonautoid octopods characterized by their expanded dorsal webs and strong sexual size dimorphism, with dwarfed males. The scarcity of taxonomic features attributed to this genus presents a challenge, and there is growing evidence of species misidentification in Tremoctopus genus on a molecular level. In this study, we investigated four female specimens of blanket octopus Tremoctopus violaceus caught by purse seine fishing in the Central Eastern Adriatic Sea in 2019. Individuals had smooth, firm and muscular bodies, dark bluish purple on the dorsal and iridescent silvery on the ventral side, with dorsal mantle lengths of 113, 82, 80 and 78 mm. The constructed phylogenetic trees based on the 16S ribosomal RNA and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I sequences of investigated Adriatic specimens and publicly available sequences showed strong support for the T. violaceus clade, consisting of individuals collected from the Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, with the exclusion of Indo-Pacific clade most probably corresponding to T. gracilis. To fully understand the life-history traits of Tremoctopus species, future research should focus on DNA-based methods for correct species identification combined with morphological characters, geographic distribution and ecological information. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Taxonomy, Biology and Evolution of Cephalopods)
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16 pages, 2941 KiB  
Article
Morphological and Genetic Differentiation of Loliolus (Nipponololigo) beka (Cephalopoda: Loliginidae) in Coastal China
by Shuwen Li, Yuhan Lyu, Chi Zhang and Xiaodong Zheng
Diversity 2023, 15(1), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15010041 - 29 Dec 2022
Viewed by 2284
Abstract
The population genetic structure of 211 samples of Loliolus (Nipponololigo) beka, which were selected from across seven geographic localities—in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea—were analyzed using mitochondrial COI and 16S rRNA gene markers. Phylogenetic trees [...] Read more.
The population genetic structure of 211 samples of Loliolus (Nipponololigo) beka, which were selected from across seven geographic localities—in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea—were analyzed using mitochondrial COI and 16S rRNA gene markers. Phylogenetic trees and a haplotype network both showed that the L. (N.) beka localities were genetically distinct, forming two homogeneous lineages: Lineage A and Lineage B. The results of an AMOVA showed that the genetic variation in the L. (N.) beka populations was dominated by the genetic variation between the two lineages, and both the genetic distance and genetic differentiation indices indicated that the genetic differentiation between the two lineages of L. (N.) beka in Chinese waters had reached the level of species divergence. To further confirm the differences between the two lineages shown in the molecular results, we performed a detailed analysis based on morphometric observations and a multivariate statistical analysis to compare the morphology characteristics of Lineage A and Lineage B. The results showed that there were significant differences (p < 0.05) in the ventral mantle length (VML); the mantle width index (MWI); the fin width index (FWI); the head length index (HLI); the left Arm IV length index (LALI4), the right Arm III length index (RALI3), the right Arm IV length index (RALI4), and the hectocotylized proportion of the left Arm IV length (HcL%) between the two lineages. The differences between the two lineages were also supported by the analysis results for the number of sucker ring teeth. Accordingly, the results of the morphological analysis further confirmed the molecular analysis and provided additional evidence for the presence of the cryptic species of L. (N.) beka in the coastal areas of China. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Taxonomy, Biology and Evolution of Cephalopods)
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13 pages, 2460 KiB  
Article
Morphological Description and Phylogenetic Analyses of a New Species of Callistoctopus (Cephalopoda, Octopodidae) from China
by Jiahua Li, Chenxi Xu and Xiaodong Zheng
Diversity 2022, 14(12), 1083; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14121083 - 08 Dec 2022
Viewed by 1590
Abstract
A new octopus species, Callistoctopus tenuipes sp. nov., was formally described from the southeastern coastal waters of China using morphological description and molecular analysis methods. C. tenuipes sp. nov. is a small- to moderate-sized octopus, which is characterized by very narrow and long [...] Read more.
A new octopus species, Callistoctopus tenuipes sp. nov., was formally described from the southeastern coastal waters of China using morphological description and molecular analysis methods. C. tenuipes sp. nov. is a small- to moderate-sized octopus, which is characterized by very narrow and long arms. Although it was previously misidentified as the juvenile of Octopus minor (Sasaki, 1920), it can be recognised by spots, gill lamellae count, funnel organ shape, enlarged suckers, and ligula shape. C. tenuipes sp. nov. differs from the small-sized octopus Callistoctopus xiaohongxu, mainly in the gill lamellae count, funnel organ shape, and arm-length index. In the molecular analysis, sequences obtained from the cytochrome c-oxidase subunit I (COI) gene of eight specimens were 590 bp in length. The pairwise Kimura 2-parameter (K2P) genetic distances between Octopodidae species ranged from 8.58 to 23.79% based on the COI gene. The phylogenetic analyses suggested that C. tenuipes sp. nov. belonged to the Callistoctopus clade and may have a close affinity with C. xiaohongxu and O. minor. Moreover, three species delimitation methods all strongly supported C. tenuipes as a separate species. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Taxonomy, Biology and Evolution of Cephalopods)
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31 pages, 9483 KiB  
Article
Detailed Description and Morphological Assessment of Sepia typica (Steenstrup, 1875) (Cephalopoda: Sepiidae)
by Robin W. Leslie, Anthony J. Richardson and Marek R. Lipiński
Diversity 2022, 14(12), 1073; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14121073 - 05 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1888
Abstract
A detailed systematic account of Sepia (Hemisepius) typica, an endemic southern African species of cuttlefish, is presented. An analysis of morphological data (morphometric and meristic characters) suggests that S. typica is a single well-established species without morphs or subspecies. It is, however, [...] Read more.
A detailed systematic account of Sepia (Hemisepius) typica, an endemic southern African species of cuttlefish, is presented. An analysis of morphological data (morphometric and meristic characters) suggests that S. typica is a single well-established species without morphs or subspecies. It is, however, highly variable, perhaps more so than other small sepiids from the region, and there are slight, but significant indications of population structure. Therefore, molecular biological studies based upon a large sample could help investigate broad genetic patterns in what morphologically appears to be a single highly variable species. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Taxonomy, Biology and Evolution of Cephalopods)
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16 pages, 1996 KiB  
Article
High-Density Genetic Linkage Map of the Southern Blue-ringed Octopus (Octopodidae: Hapalochlaena maculosa)
by Brooke L. Whitelaw, David B. Jones, Jarrod Guppy, Peter Morse, Jan M. Strugnell, Ira R. Cooke and Kyall Zenger
Diversity 2022, 14(12), 1068; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14121068 - 04 Dec 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2364
Abstract
Genetic linkage maps provide a useful resource for non-model genomes and can aid in genome reassembly to form more contiguous pseudo-chromosomes. We present the first linkage map of any cephalopod, H. maculosa, composed of 47 linkage groups (LG). A total of 2166 [...] Read more.
Genetic linkage maps provide a useful resource for non-model genomes and can aid in genome reassembly to form more contiguous pseudo-chromosomes. We present the first linkage map of any cephalopod, H. maculosa, composed of 47 linkage groups (LG). A total of 2166 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 2455 presence–absence variant loci were utilised by Lep-Map3 in linkage map construction. The map length spans 2016.62 cM with an average marker distance of 0.85 cM. Integration of the recent H. maculosa genome allowed 1151 scaffolds comprising 34% of the total genomic sequence to be orientated and/or placed using 1278 markers across all 47 LG. The linkage map generated provides a new perspective on HOX gene distribution in octopods. In the H. maculosa linkage map three (SCR, LOX4 and POST1) of six identified HOX genes (HOX1/LAB, SCR, LOX2, LOX4, LOX5, POST1) were located within the same LG (LG 9). The generation of a linkage map for H. maculosa has provided a valuable resource for understanding the evolution of cephalopod genomes and will provide a base for future work. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Taxonomy, Biology and Evolution of Cephalopods)
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