Rafting dispersal in a brooding southern sea star (Asteroidea : Anasterias)
Jonathan M. Waters A C , Tania M. King A , Ceridwen I. Fraser B and Chris Garden A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Zoology, University of Otago, 340 Great King Street, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand.
B Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Building 141 Linnaeus Way, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: jonathan.waters@otago.ac.nz
Invertebrate Systematics 32(2) 253-258 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS17037
Submitted: 7 April 2017 Accepted: 14 July 2017 Published: 22 March 2018
Abstract
Marine biogeographers have long speculated that macroalgal rafting presents a dispersal mechanism for brooding marine invertebrates of the Southern Ocean, but few direct observations of rafting by echinoderm taxa have been documented. Here we report rafting of the brooding benthic sea star Anasterias suteri, along with two mollusc taxa (Onithochiton neglectus – also a brooder – and Cantharidus roseus), on detached bull-kelp Durvillaea antarctica in Foveaux Strait, southern New Zealand. The rafting journey, intercepted at sea, likely lasted for 2–3 weeks and may have covered several hundred kilometres. We use DNA sequences, together with meteorological and prevailing oceanographic data, to infer the likely Fiordland (mainland) origins of the raft and its epifauna. This rafting dispersal mechanism provides an explanation for the broad (circum-subantarctic) but disjunct distribution of brooding Anasterias populations, and for the genetic connectivity observed between their populations.
Additional keywords: biogeography, echinoderm, marine, kelp, LDD, phylogeography.
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