- Biodiversity and continental margins

Gary Poore, Museum Victoria - CERF Biodiversity Program

Squat Lobster, Uroptychus naso Photo Museum Victoria

Hub researchers have promoted the importance of taxonomy and biogeography in the study of continental margins in the Census of Marine Life, Continental Margin Ecosystems (COMARGE) program, and have promoted Australia’s margin studies as part of international research effort. Since 2007, COMARGE has supported international collaboration into research on the taxonomy and biology of squat lobsters. These crustaceans belong to three families of decapods that are important components of continental margin faunas in Australia as well as world-wide. One of the first tasks from the squat lobster working group meeting in New Zealand in 2007 was to compile a hierarchical list of the world’s 900 species that was published in Zootaxa in 2008. Another was to compile a bibliography of more than 1,000 citations. Currently COMARGE is supporting a post-doc at Museum Victoria, Dr Joanne Taylor, who is preparing interactive electronic keys to the world’s squat lobster fauna.

This connection and the international interest in squat lobster phylogeny and biogeography has enabled the CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub to use them as taxa for studies of connectivity on seamounts (P. England, CSIRO) and of large-scale biogeography of continental slope faunas in Australia and the Indo-West Pacific (G. Poore, J. Taylor, A. McCallum, Museum Victoria, with N. Andreakis, AIMS). Questions being addressed by these groups include: if and how are species isolated on seamounts, are cryptic species present, and how can phylogenetic analysis help the understanding of biogeographic links between Australia and the rest of the Indo-West Pacific. The results will help understand the rich diversity of Australia’s fauna, how it has originated and evolved, and be integrated in the international Census of Marine Life program.

Image: Squat Lobster, Uroptychus naso Photo Museum Victoria