Figure 1.
Map showing the Blanes Canyon (BC), La Fonera Canyon (LFC) and Avilés Canyon (AC) and location of deployments along the Iberian Peninsula.
Map was modified from Romano et al. 2013.
Table 1.
Location and deployment time of the wood traps in the Blanes Canyon (BC), in the adjacent open slope (BC-OS), in the La Fonera Canyon (LFC), in the Avilés Canyon (AC) and its adjacent western slope (AC-WS).
Figure 2.
Experimental wood samples: A) on the seafloor at LFC at 130 m depth before recovery (artificially lit by ROV); B), C) Individuals of X. dorsalis in the aquarium in wood that was recovered after 10 months from 130 m deep in LFC; D) Xylophaga spp. the day after recovery from La Fonera Canyon (1100 m deep) in wood after 6 months immersion; E) oak from La Fonera Canyon 1100 m one week after recovery.
Note the development of fecal chimneys around the siphons.
Table 2.
Geographical location and GEnBank accession numbers of taxa and sequences used for this study.
Table 3.
Sequences of the primers used for amplification and sequencing in this study.
Figure 3.
Bayesian Inference (BI) tree, including Maximum Likelihood (ML) bootstrap supports on the nodes, generated from sequences of the18SrDNA and 28S rDNA genes.
Values of support below 0.5 and 50% are not shown. The scale bar represents the number of nucleotide substitutions per site. Letters (A, B, C and D) after the genus name correspond to the “morphotype” of Xylophaga, and numbers in brackets to the individual codes (Table 2).
Table 4.
Pairwise genetic divergence for Xylophaga species.
Figure 4.
Xylophaga dorsalis: A) Dorsal view of shell with soft parts.
B) Lateral view of shell with soft parts. C) Frontal view. D) Inner shell. g = white spots; PAS = posterior adductor scar; SR = siphonal retractor scar.
Figure 5.
Variation of mesoplax among Mediterranean specimens of Xylophaga dorsalis.
Figure 6.
Xylophaga cf. dorsalis with small individuals attached to the siphons indicated by arrows.
es = excurrent siphon opening In B, note the white spots on the lateral siphon.
Figure 7.
A-C: Dorsal views. D-F. Enlarged view of the mesoplax. G: Lateral view of shell with soft parts. H: internal shell. J: siphon openings. A,D,H: Morphotype C. B,E,G,J: morphotype D. C,F: morphotype E. Scale bar in A,B,C,G,H = 5 mm; in D,E,F = 2 mm; in J = 1 mm. PAS = posterior adductor scar; PR = pedal retractor scar; SR = siphonal retractor scar.
Figure 8.
X. brava: n. sp. A) Lateral view of shell with soft parts.
B) Dorsal view. C) Frontal view. D) Inner shell where shadow area represents the posterior adductor scar.
Figure 9.
X. brava n. sp: A.)Enlarged view of the distal siphons.
B) Common siphon opening. C) cones which cover the siphons.
Figure 10.
X. brava n. sp: A) SEM micrograph of the whole animal from left side.
B) enlargement of the distal siphons.
Figure 11.
X. cf. anselli: A) Lateral view of the whole animal.
B) Dorsal view. C) Internal shell. PAS = posterior adductor scar. Scale bar in A = 2 mm, in B and C = 3 mm.
Figure 12.
SEM micrographs of umbonal areas of specimens of X. cf. anselli (left) and X. brava (right) Arrows measure prodissoconch diameter.
Scale bars = 250 µm