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Published: 2017-11-22
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Fixation, description and DNA barcode of a neotype for Botryllus schlosseri (Pallas, 1766) (Tunicata, Ascidiacea)

Natural History Museum of Venice (Italy), Santa Croce 1730, 30135 Venezia.
Department of Biology and CoNISMa LRU, University of Bari "A. Moro" (Italy), Via E. Orabona, 4, 70124 Bari.
Department of Biology and CoNISMa LRU, University of Bari "A. Moro" (Italy), Via E. Orabona, 4, 70124 Bari.
Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies and Biopharmaceutics, University of Bari "A. Moro" (Italy), Via E. Orabona, 4, 70124 Bari. IBIOM, Istituto di Biomembrane, Bioenergetica e Biotecnologie Molecolari, CNR (Italy), Via Giovanni Amendola 165/A - 70126 Bari.
Department of Biology, University of Padua (Italy), Via U. Bassi 58/B, 35131 Padova.
Ascidiacea Botryllus schlosseri Tunicata taxonomy neotype COI sequence DNA barcode

Abstract

Botryllus schlosseri is a widespread colonial ascidian commonly considered cosmopolitan and amply used as model for researches ranging from developmental biology to immunobiology. Recently, molecular data lead to hypothesize that the species named B. schlosseri may consist of more than a single taxon. Indeed, five highly divergent clades, named A-E, have been genetically identified and are referred as cryptic species. In this context, and lacking both a type and a detailed morphological description, we believe that it is necessary, as a taxonomic reference point, to designate a neotype and re-describe the species. Therefore, a sample from the Lagoon of Venice (Adriatic Sea, Italy) was deposited as neotype in the Natural History Museum of Venice (Italy), preserved both in formalin and in 90% ethanol. Here we provide a morphological description of the suggested neotype of B. schlosseri that takes into account several developmental stages (oozooid, zooid of first blastogenic generations, and mature zooid) and is carefully compared with the previous descriptions of samples coming from other European and non-European localities. Finally, we associate our morphological description to a “DNA barcode”, consisting in a long fragment of the mitochondrial COI gene. Our description is associated to clade A, although at now we cannot guarantee that this association is univocal.

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