Southern California Assocation of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 1 prostomium Dorsal View ttanchiae ocular area peostonuum dorsal tentacle prostomiuni peustoimum Kirkegaardia tesselata Photos by: V. Rodriguez-Villanueva Ventral View This Issue 12 JUNE 2017, CIRRATULIDAE, CSD; V. RODRIGUEZ-VILLANUEVA, LEAD.2 15 MAY 2017, PYCNOGONIDA, NHMLAC; BONNIE BAIN, GUEST SPEAKER.4 BIBLIOGRAPHY.7 SCAMIT OFFICERS.8 The SCAMIT newsletter is not deemed to be a valid publication for formal taxonomic purposes. Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 1 12 JUNE 2017, CIRRATULIDAE, CSD; V. RODRIGUEZ-VILLANUEVA, LEAD Attendees: Kathy Langan, Ricardo Martinez Lara, Veronica Rodriguez-Villanueva (CSD); Mike McCarthy, Ernie Ruckman, Kelvin Barwick (OCSD); Brent Haggin, Bill Furlong (LACSD); Cody Larsen, Jennifer Smolenski (CLA-EMD). The business meeting was opened by Kelvin Barwick. He thanked Veronica for taking on the unenviable task of trying to provide some insight into the cirratulids. He also queried attendees to see how many people thought the meeting started at 9, instead of the usual 9:30. It turns out the meeting time on our website needs to be changed to 9:30. We occasionally start meetings at 9, but those are usually under special circumstances. Kelvin will email Dean Pentcheff, our webmaster, and ask him to change the time in the “upcoming meetings” box. He then briefly covered upcoming meetings. We were reminded that B’ 18 is looming nearer and there will be a B’ 18 kick-off meeting at SCCWRP on September 14 th , 2017. There has been some discussion of moving in to fresh water habitats, but for the most part the POTWs will remain interested in the offshore environments and maybe some sampling in the basins. Also, the Channel Islands are an area of concern as they have been showing some degradation in past surveys; there will most likely be a push to do more sampling in that region. At this point Kelvin asked SCAMIT members to consider how SCAMIT can benefit and contribute to the B’ 18 project. For example, specialty taxonomy? This has been an option in past Bight projects for taxa where consistency of identifications amongst SCB taxonomists was problematic. The answer was to hire an individual as a consultant to work on that specific taxa; in the past this has been done for the anthozoa and polycladida. However, for B’ 13 there was no budget for specialty taxonomy and that may turn out to be a problem again for this upcoming project. Anyway, Kelvin asked that anyone who has thoughts, ideas, opinions, etc, to please let him know. Kelvin then gave us a quick overview of the work of the SCAMIT Species List Review Committee. Final emendations are due to Don Cadien by June 15 th and Edition 12 of the List is on schedule to be published on July 1 st . He also called for any interested parties to join the committee if they so desire. Just send Kelvin an email letting him know of your interest. With that it was time for the taxonomy portion of the meeting. Veronica had put together a presentation on cirratulids and below are questions and comments that arose during her presentation. [Ed Note: All photos contained in this newsletter are credited to Veronica Rodriguez-Villanueva]. Ricardo started out by observing that Monticellina was previously used as the name for a Platyhelminthes group; therefore the switch from Monticellina to Kirkegaardia for cirratulids is just a straight name change. UPCOMING MEETINGS Visit the SCAMIT website at: www.scamit.org for the latest upcoming meetings announcements. Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 1 Kelvin then asked - Could weak annulations of the peristomium be due to preservation? Some peristomiums appear elongated while others seem contracted. The annulations (rings) don’t S really wrap all the way around the peristomium. 3 Ricardo replied that it could be natural variability, but in the literature, they are referred J to as pseudo-segments or pseudo-annulations. ^ i Mike asked - Are there general characteristics Jf that we can use to initially classify a cirratulid ^ as being in Kirkegaardia without having to mount them and look for the serrated teeth on the neurosetae? Bill Furlong chimed in and stated that for initial genera ID, he’s noticed that what he calls Kirkegaardia tend to have shorter neurosetae than Aphelochaeta. Ricardo responded by stating that he wasn’t sure if Kirkegaardia necessarily have shorter neurosetae than Aphelochaeta. He felt it more likely that the neurosetae are shorter than the notosetae in Kirkegaardia , whereas the neurosetae and notosetae are more or less of equal lengths in Aphelochaeta. For example: Kirkegaardia Aphelochaeta Veronica stated that she mounts everything and mostly relies on the presence of serrated teeth on the neurosetae. For example: 3 Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 1 At this point someone mentioned Tony Phillip’s “rule of thumb”: If you can’t see the teeth @ 40X, then it’s not Kirkegaardia. But Veronica stated that she would still look for teeth at 100X to verify between Kirkegaardia and Aphelochaeta. Veronica then went on to discuss staining; it is only a tool to be used in combination with morphological characters, don’t rely solely on stain patterns. Bill Furlong explained that he “throws every cirratulid in stain. If it stains, it tells you one thing. If it doesn’t stain, then it tells you another thing”. Ricardo commented that for cirratulids, stain patterns within species can be quite variable. Veronica described her method of leaving cirratulids in stain sometimes up to 2 weeks and stated that she has not seen differences in stain patterns for different saturation times (using methyl green). Ricardo added - if you stain for 1 day, the stain eventually fades but if you stain for 2 weeks, the stain pattern remains. So he suggested staining for at least 24 hours in order to try and keep things consistent amongst taxonomists Veronica noted that she doesn’t really see nuchal organs in Kirkegaardia except for K. cryptica. The body of K cryptica also tends to spiral, and the abdominal segments begin to expand appearing bead-like. Brent Haggin discussed his technique - If he sees an individual with compact thoracic segments, but are slightly expanded (parapods are slightly separated), then he goes with Aphelochaeta glandaria Cmplx instead of Kirkegaardia serratiseta. Veronica wrapped up the meeting addressing two species of Kirkegaardia. For K siblina , the first thing you notice is the dorsal crest, more so than the position of the branchiae. For K tesselata, the most noticeable characters are: (1) the peristomium bluntly terminating at the anterior border of setiger 1, and (2) its distinct membranous tube with multiple lateral extensions through which the branchiae protrude. 15 MAY 2017, PYCNOGONIDA, NHMLAC; BONNIE BAIN, GUEST SPEAKER Attendees: Bonnie Bain, Dixie State University (guest speaker); Ron Velarde, Katie Beauchamp (CSD); Danny Tang, Kelvin Barwick, Mike McCarthy (OCSD); Craig Campbell, Erin Oderlin, Cody Larson, Jennifer Smolenski (CLA-EMD); Dean Pentcheff, Leslie Harris (NHMLAC); Don Cadien (LACSD); Larry Lovell, Dean Pasko, Tony Phillips (Private Consultants); Beth Horvath, Westmont College. Kelvin started with a summary of the upcoming meetings through October. Leslie also added that we were trying to arrange for Mary Wicksten to make it out to California in June. Kelvin mentioned that Danny was leading the Copepod conference and the banquet would be held here at NHMLAC. They also announced that the Polychaete International Conference website was up and running. Kelvin then introduced our Guest Speaker, Bonnie Bain. She was originally a molluscan taxonomist and charter member of SCAMIT. After getting her MS at SDSU, she moved to Manhattan, where she first began her studies on Pycnogonids. 4 Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 1 After introductions were complete, Bonnie began her presentation, “Pycnogonid Biology: an Overview or What the Textbooks Never Tell you.” Unfortunately, we experienced some software difficulties with the presentation that delayed its implementation. During the technical delay, Bonnie opened the floor to general questions. Kelvin asked about Nymphonpixellae , which Bonnie thought might not be the same as the originally described species, its type locale being Washington State. Bonnie mentioned that the West Coast taxa probably needs a complete re¬ working. Another genus in question is Nymphoxus. After resolving the computer issues, we started the presentation. Pantopoda are strictly marine and range to the deep sea, with sizes reaching as large as 70 cm leg span. The west coast pycnogonids are typically small, making their identifications difficult. They are infrequently collected because of their cryptic coloration which helps them blend in amongst the fouling organisms they reside upon, e.g. bryzoans. Some species are even good swimmers, such as Stylopallene longicauda, which lives on bryozoans in Westemport Bay, Australia. A paper by Sherwood et al 1998, describes how this species is protected by alkaloids. Pycnogonids are typically predatory (e.g., Anoplodactylus) on snails, shrimps, hydroids, bryozoans, anemones; while others are scavengers (e.g., Achelia). Some feed on whale fall (Braby et al 2009), or on the anemones that colonize whale carcasses. Others live on wood fall in shallower water. In short, they have a broad range of feeding behaviors. Bonnie then went into a general discussion of the morphology of pycnogonids, noting that pycnogonids really do have a true abdomen, contrary to some published accounts. Appendages 1, 2, and 3 are the Chelifores, Palps (Pedipalps), and Ovigerous legs, respectively. These are followed by 4 walking legs, though some genera have 5 or as many as 6. She then addressed a commonly asked perplexing question: How to tell the difference between males and females? Females are generally bigger than males. Males have the eggs/larvae present on the ovigerous legs, while females carry them on the femurs. The eggs of the female are actually within the leg (femur), and are visible as a white ring. The dimensions of the male and female femurs are different, with the female having an expanded distal end. If they are immature, then you must look at other structures, e.g., the gonopores, found distally and ventrally on the second coxal joint of females. Female gonopores are oval, while male gonopores are represented by tiny circles. So if the gonopore is difficult to see, you may likely be dealing with a male. In addition, females will have a gonopore on all four legs, while males vary such that they may have gonopores on only one leg, two, three or all four. Males are also the only gender that carries cement glands, which look like little spigots and are usually present on the femur, though some species have them on tibia 1. Bonnie reviewed what little is known about the pycnogonid life cycle. Females seem to choose a male to copulate with; this is based on direct observations. The fertilization appears to be external, but not too many details are known. The males may then gather the released eggs and cement them onto the ovigers where they are provided with ventilation and protection from predators. Where known, it is mostly the males that demonstrate paternal care. In other groups, however, such as Colossendeidae, there is no information about eggs or larvae. Males often carry multiple egg masses, and it is not resolved if they carry only eggs that they have fertilized or if they also carry the eggs of other males. Some species, such as Nymphon aequidigitatum carry different generations of young (e.g., released juveniles and newly acquired eggs). Some species have been demonstrated to live as long as 10+ years. 5 Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 1 Bonnie then went into details of pycnogonida larval development and the several different recorded approaches - typical, atypical, encysted, and attaching. After lunch, Bonnie completed the discussion of development in pycnogonids and moved on to taxonomy and classification. The Class Pycnogonida will soon be re-classified as the Order Pycnogonida under the Class Arachnida. There are over 2,000 species worldwide, with roughly 93 extant genera in 8, 9, or more, families. Regarding the Classification Scheme of Fry (1978), which looked at overall similarity of structure among species, Bonnie suggested that we look at it as an interesting blip in the historical record of pycnogonids. Unfortunately, all of Fry’s data was destroyed after his death and there is no way to recreate his efforts. She then showed a table comparing historical classification efforts: Hedgpeth (1947, 1982), Amaud & Bamber (1987), Stock (1994), and Bamber (2007) (see attachment at the end of the newsletter). Bonnie then presented slides discussing difficulties of several families: Callipallenidae, Endeidae, Tanystylidae, and Austrodecidae. For example, Bonnie explained the complex evolution of the family Callipallenidae Hilton, 1942 based on the confusion of the use of the genus Pallene by Johnston (1837), which was a name previously occupied by a genus of Coleoptera. After describing the complexity of previous analyses and configurations, Bonnie suggested that one of the most important features for developing a cladogram of the pycnogonids is the structure of the ovigerous leg, not just presence/absence. The basic difference is whether the structure is complete or modified. They have multiple functions that make them very important evolutionarily: egg handling during mating (males & females), carrying eggs/larvae (males only), stimulating females in courtship, grooming, and food handling. Regarding the ovigerous legs, certain characters such as spination, reduction in number or shape/size of specific segments, terminal segment morphology, may prove important in species distinctions, as in Ammothea which has the last four segments of the ovigerous leg modified. Then we have modified legs where the males and females differ (e.g., Phoxichelidum and Anoplodactylus). Bonnie’s analysis of the ovigerous leg structure will likely change the traditional classification by combining some families (e.g., Nymphonidae and Callipallenidae) or combine three families (i.e., Phoxichilidiidae, Endeidae, Pycnogonidae); whereas others, such as Tanystylids, may be split into two families. In addition, Bonnie went over the history of pycnogonid classification as it relates to insects, Crustacea, and its own phylum or class, beginning with Linneus and Strom in the mid-1700s and continuing through Giribet et al (2001). She then provided strong evidence for the close relationship between arachnids, specifically the Acari (ticks and marine mites), and Pycnogonids based on a suite of shared character states. Moreover, her argument for the close morphological relationship between Acari and Pycnogonida is supported by separate analysis of molecular data. The problem with many cladisitic analyses of the Arachnid-Crustacean relationship is that pycnogonid data are often excluded from the analysis because they don’t know what to do with them. Oviger and pedipalp characters are very valuable and useful in distinguishing species. Jennifer asked for clarification of the definition of a “neck”, which Bonnie said is a bad term. It is more correct to discuss the shape of the cephalon. Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 1 The meeting ended with a round of applause as various members in attendance began asking Bonnie specific questions or sought clarification of particular issues. Just at the end, Dean mentioned that one of the problems he has is that existing keys try to key males and females together, but in some cases it might be easier to key the sexes separately. Though the point was now less important since Bonnie had explained how to differentiate males from females, she agreed that keys might indeed be simpler if they were segregated by sex. She said she’d give it some thought. And with that, the note taker left the building! BIBLIOGRAPHY Amaud, F., R.N. Bamber. (1987). The biology of Pycnogonida. Adv. Mar. Biol., 24. pp. 1-95. Bamber, Roger N. (2007). A holistic re-interpretation of the phylogeny of Pycnogonida Latreille, 1810 (Athropoda). Zootaxa. 1668: 295-312. Braby, Caren E., Vicki B. Pearse, Bo nni e A. Bain, Robert C. Vrijenhoek. (2009). Pycnogonid- Cnidarian Trophic Interactions in the deep Monterey Submarine Canyon, Invertebrate Biology, 128 (4): 359-363. Fry, William G. (1978). A Classification within the Pycnogonids. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Vol 63, Issue 1-2. Pg 35-58. Giribet, G., Edgecombe, G.D., Wheeler, W.C. (2001). Arthropod phylogeny based on eight molecular loci and morphology. Nature 413(6852): 157-161. Hedgpeth, J.W. (1947). On the Evolutionary Significance of Pycnogonids. Smiths. Misc. Coll., 106. Pp 1-53. Hedgpeth, J. W. (1982). Pycnogonida. In: Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms, volume 2. Edited by S.P. Parker. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. pp. 169-173. Johnston, G. (1828). Contributions to the British Fauna. Zool. J. Zool. Soc. London, 3: 486-491. Sherwood, J., Walls, J.T. & Ritz, D.A. (1998). Amathamide alkaloids in the Pycnogonid, Stylopallene longicauda , Epizoic on the Chemically defended Bryozoan, Amathia wilsoni. Pap. andProc. R. Soc. Tasmania 132: 65-70. Stock J.H. (1994). Indo-West Pacific Pycnogonida collected by some major oceanographic expeditions. Beaufortia 44 (3), 17-77. 7 Publication Date: August 2017 May-June, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 1 Please visit the SCAMIT Website at: www.scamit.org SCAMIT OFFICERS If you need any other information concerning SCAMIT please feel free to contact any of the officers at their e-mail addresses: President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Kelvin Barwick (714)593-7475 Leslie Harris (213)763-3234 Megan Lilly (619)758-2336 Erin Oderlin (310)648-5477 kbarwick@ocsd. com lharris@nhm.org mlilly @sandiego. gov erin. oderlin@lacity. org The SCAMIT newsletter is published every two months and is distributed freely to members in good standing. Membership is $15 for an electronic copy of the newsletter, available via the web site at www.scamit.org, and $30 to receive a printed copy via USPS. Institutional membership, which includes a mailed printed copy, is $60. All correspondences can be sent to the Secretary at the email address above or to: SCAMIT PO Box 50162 Long Beach, CA 90815 Table 1: SUMMARY OF CURRENT CLASSIFICATIONS: A COMPARISON Hedgpeth (1947, 1982) Stock (1994) Arnaud & Bamber (1987) Bamber (2007) Nymphonidae Wilson, 1878 Nymphonidae Wilson, 1878 Nymphonidae Wilson, 1878 Nymphonidae Wilson, 1878 i Pallenidae Wilson,1878 Callipallenidae Flynn, 1929 Callipallenidae Hilton, 1942 Callipallenidae Hilton, 1942 Phoxichilidiidae Sars, 1891 O Phoxichilidiidae Sars, 1891 Phoxichilidiidae Sars, 1891 Phoxichilidiidae Sars, 1891 Endeidae Norman, 1908 Endeidae Norman, 1908 Endeidae Norman, 1908 Ammotheidae Dohrn, 1881 q Ammotheidae Dohrn, 1881 q Ammotheidae Dohrn, 1881 q Ammotheidae Dohrn, 1881 (restricted) Tanystylidae Schimkewitsch, 1913 Colossendeidae Hoek, 1881 Colossendeidae Hoek, 1881 Colossendeidae Hoek, 1881 Colossendeidae Hoek, 1881 Pycnogonidae Wilson,1878 Pycnogonidae Wilson, 1878 Pycnogonidae Wilson, 1878 Pycnogonidae Wilson, 1878 Austrodecidae Stock, 1954 Austrodecidae Stock, 1954 4 Austrodecidae Stock, 1954 4 Rhynchothoracidae Thompson, 1909 Rhynchothoracidae Fry, 1978 Rhynchothoracidae Thompson, 1909 Pallenopsidae Fry, 1978 Eurycydidae Sars, 1891 (emend) 1 Pallene is a preoccupied name (Flynn, 1929); replaced with Callipallene 2|ncludes Endeis and Pallenopsis ; 3|ncludes Tanystylidae; includes Pantopipetta Southern California Assocation of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 2 Invasion of the Red Crabs {Pleuroncodes planipes ) Mission Bay, San Diego, CA June 2016 This Issue JULY 2017.2 14 AUGUST 2017, EUSIRIDAE, LACSD - D. CADIEN MEETING LEAD.2 BIBLIOGRAPHY.4 15 JULY 2017, SCAMIT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING, DANA PT, CA.5 SCAMIT OFFICERS.9 The SCAMIT newsletter is not deemed to be a valid publication for formal taxonomic purposes. Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 2 JULY 2017 As is customary, there was no meeting in July due to the heavy field schedule for most of the POTWs. 14 AUGUST 2017, EUSIRIDAE, LACSD - D. CADIEN MEETING LEAD Attendance: Ron Velarde, Katie Beauchamp, CSD; Jennifer Smolenski, Cody Larsen, CLAEMD; Larry Lovell, DCE; Jovairia Loan, LACSD; Kelvin Barwick, OCSD. The business meeting began with Kelvin announcing upcoming meetings. The 11 September meeting will be at the NHMLAC and will address Terebellids, led by Leslie. The October meeting will also be at the NHMLAC and will be a tutorial on microscopic photography and associated software programs; meeting leads will be Leslie Harris and Dean Pentcheff. After October we have nothing scheduled. Kelvin called for volunteers. Possible topics were discussed and Kelvin revealed that he would be willing to lead a Polychaete Toolbox review in November. It could be the first of many as it will take time to cover all the families. Don suggested that we don’t need “meeting leads” in order to conduct Bight standardization workshops. This train of thought lead to a discussion on the Bight QA process and how it could inform future topics. Larry reminded everyone that, as in earlier Bight projects, problematic taxa are identified and attempts are made to recruit taxonomists willing to take them on. In Bight’ 13 those groups were Oligochaetes, Photis spp, and Cirratulids. Since they did not receive funding at the time, they are still viable candidates for B’ 18 specialty taxonomy. It was decided that for this next Bight project members should be polled to see what phyla are suggested. It was announced that SCAMIT’s PayPal account is now up and running for conducting financial transactions. We are getting a discount on fees via our nonprofit status. A submission page with a link to PayPal will need to be added to the website so that members can make payments online. The annual SCAMIT Executive Committee Meeting was held in July and the mintues are included at the end of this newsletter. The Biodiversity Heritage Library’s (BHL) Public Outreach group has contacted SCAMIT asking if we would be interested in contributing a blog post to their web site. The post would address how the BHL has influenced SCAMIT and its members. Kelvin mentioned that he could envision such a document but laments not having the time to write it. Volunteers? It was also suggested that SCAMIT could make the newsletter archive available on the BHL. The Executive Committee has given their blessing and Kelvin will pursue this in the coming months. Don had the floor next and apologized for the delay in the publication of Edition 12 of the SCAMIT Species List. He’s working on it and it’s getting close. He noted that cross checking all the entries takes a long time. Kelvin reiterated that others are welcome to join the committee and help Don with the Species Lists. Don reported that the 13 th International Copepod meeting held July 16-21 at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium went well and the Proceedings will be published soon. 2 UPCOMING MEETINGS Visit the SCAMIT website at: www.scamit.org for the latest upcoming meetings announcements. Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 2 With the business meeting concluded it was time to start the taxonomy portion of the day. Don began by distributing 3 handouts: 1) A summary by Don Cadien regarding the hierarchal changes in Amphipoda according to Lowry & Myers, 2017 2) Amphipoda of the Northeast Pacific (Equator to Aleutians, intertidal to abyss): XXII. Eusiroidea - a review. Donald B. Cadien, LACSD. 22 July, 2004 (revised 8 March, 2015). 3) Spring 2017 Taxonomy Training—Amphipods: Eusiridae. Prepared by DCE (Dean Pasko) February 2016. There have been many changes to Amphipoda hierarchies in Lowry & Myers (2017). They create a new working hierarchy for amphipods which is based on morphological character traits. Some examples of the changes are: - The integration of the Hyperiids - Colomastids have been pulled out into a new suborder - The infraorder Lysianassida is now integrated under the suborder Amphilochidea Don felt that the paper rounds things off nicely, but there is still more work to do. It offers a unifying characteristic for all Eusirids - the attachment point for the gnathopods being not at the base, but distally, such that they look like they swivel, which Don found very unsatisfying. He stated that there is no single characteristic or small group of characteristics that define Eusirids. They are a ‘ pastiche ’ of a group with no single synapomorphy. “They are like ordering Chinese food. Most people will get rice, hut some could get noodles ”. The group shows great diversity in the NEP. They are found mostly in the north and in deeper waters. The most prevalent Eusirids found in our local monitoring samples are Rhachotropis, which do not display the characteristic of a single attachment point of the gnathopods, therefore, much of the paper doesn’t impact our local species. Some primary points to take note of in the Lowry and Myers publication, relative to eusiroids, include: - As mentioned above, none of the Rhachotropis have a ‘Eusirid gnathopod’ - Eusiroides was transferred to Pontogeneidae in the Calliopioidea - In the Key to the NEP genera of the family Eusiridae (D. Cadien, 2006), “ everything below couplet 6 is now no longer in the Eusiridae family ” (But as Don vehemently stated - “ Who cares what the name is?! ” It doesn’t matter what we call it, as long as we all call it the same thing. ”). You can always trace the species back to the current family, if you’ve identified the specific taxon correctly, even using an outdated (according to familial placement) key. - Eusirids are hunters that enter the water column to feed - Bateidae are “weird”; they are algal associated in shallow waters. Gnathopod 1 is greatly reduced, vestigial, and consists of only two articles (G2 is normally developed). After Don finished his discussion, Ron Velarde led a microscope ID session of Eusirids vs. 3 Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 2 Rhachotropis (5 species) using the table Rhachotropis of the SCB (per SCAMIT NL Vol 33, No. 5) and associated diagrams. Ron stressed some key morphological traits: - Shape of the telson - Length of the incision on telson (cleft vs notched) - Shape of the eyes - Number/order of toothed ridges on Pleonites 1-3 and on Urosomite 1 After everyone had a turn at the microscopes, the meeting was adjourned. BIBLIOGRAPHY J.K. Lowry & A. A. Myers. 2017. A Phylogeny and Classification of the Amphipoda with the establishment of the new order Ingolfiellida (Crustacea: Peracarida). Zootaxa 4265 (1): 001-089. Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 2 15 JULY 2017, SCAMIT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING, DANA PT, CA Attendance: Kelvin Barwick (President), Leslie Harris (Vice President), Dean Pentcheff (Webmaster), Erin Oderlin (Treasurer), Megan Lilly (Secretary). Kelvin called the meeting to order and we opened with a comment from Dean stating that he’d like to add an item to the agenda - the Taxonomic Toolbox hierarchy is based on an older/ outdated version of the SCAMIT Species List. Do we need to bring it in-line with the most recent edition or do we care? That item was added to the agenda, and from there we started going through it in order. Secretary - Megan Lilly Megan stated that she was almost caught up with newsletter production; Vol 35 No. 5 will be out within the week, and Vol 36 No. 1 will be out in 2 -3 weeks. Next was a discussion regarding the NL editor position. This was historically held by Don Cadien but increasing work responsibilities have limited the time he has available for editing. Thus for the last few years most of the NL editing has been done by the Secretary position. An Action Item was created for Megan to follow up with Don and see if he wants to be “re-involved”, or if the layout, editing, and publishing aspects will continue to be combined and performed by the Secretary. Megan then handed out a bid she had received from Fed Ex Office for printing the newsletters. The bid was reviewed by the officers and approved; going forward Fed Ex Office in San Diego will be printing the newsletters. She is still working on setting up an account so that SCAMIT can be billed directly. In the interim, Megan will cover the cost and be reimbursed by SCAMIT. Next was a discussion on strategy for getting minutes from meetings in a timely manner. Megan recently attended the business portion of a polychaete meeting and addressed attendees; she asked that at the beginning of each SCAMIT meeting a volunteer should be named for taking minutes before the taxonomic portion of the meeting begins. When she asked for a volunteer for that day’s meeting, at first there was only the sound of crickets... but then Jennifer Smolenski from CLA-EMD volunteered and Megan received the minutes in record time. However, that still leaves Megan worried about the future and finding willing volunteers. ACTION ITEM - Megan to email Ben Ferraro (OCSD) and Je nni fer Smolenski (CLA-EMD) and see if they’d be willing to be the designated “minute takers” for Crustacea (Ben) and Polychaete (Jen) meetings, [update: emails sent and both have agreed. Thanks to Ben and Jen!] Next we covered the idea of making old editions of the Species List available on the SCAMIT website. Kelvin had a concern about people accidentally accessing an outdated List and using it incorrectly. Dean’s solution was to put an “obsolete” watermark on the pages of the old editions and also, they will only be accessed by clicking on an “archive” tab that Dean will create. With those measures in place we were comfortable with the idea. We still need to discuss the logistics of getting the old editions posted. ACTION ITEM - Kelvin will email the SLRC Species List Review Committee (SLRC) and let them know that the Executive Committee is proposing posting previous editions of the List, and seek feedback. 5 Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 2 Treasurer - Erin Qderlin Erin started by letting us know the database fund is low. For some time withdrawals from the fund were not recorded so it looks as if the amount hasn’t changed. Erin was seeking approval to transfer funds from the general checking account in to the database fund account in order to keep paying Dean for his webmaster services. It was at this point that Kelvin stated we don’t necessarily need to use database funds to pay Dean. Some discussion ensued and it was decided that we could fold the remaining database money in to the general checking account and pay Dean from that. Next Erin stated that SCAMIT made a whopping $4.35 on the CD. While that amount is not impressive it was still decided to just leave the CD funds where they are for the time being. Don Cadien purchased Mary Bergen’s microscope which she had donated to SCAMIT in order to assist us with fundraising. SCAMIT paid for the Christmas lunch as well as the September General Membership (GM) meeting lunch with a total expense of $600; Erin queried whether we should repeat that this year or if we should plan on paying for just one lunch a year. Leslie suggested replacing the Christmas lunch with a BBQ in July but the last time that was attempted there was low attendance. We decided to forgo both the July BBQ and the Christmas lunch and simply pay for one lunch a year which will be combined with a General Membership meeting, either in September or December. Kelvin then moved to accept the treasurer’s report as presented and all members voted in favor. Next Erin told us she has had some problems with Quicken. She can’t get the books to balance in that program, but she has kept a separate file in Excel and everything balances. Erin asked if she can just use Excel and if we can archive the Quicken database. We agreed and Dean told her that archiving a Quicken database might be tricky so to simplify things she could export, or copy and paste, the Quicken report in to Excel and we can archive that. Erin is keeping the upcoming International Polychaete Conference (IPC) monies completely separate. She gave blank checks to Larry and he is scanning copies of the checks as he writes them and sending them to her. Kelvin stated that he is OK with that, but wants to make sure we stay below the $50k non-profit threshold. Erin then asked if she should she add a line to the treasurer summary next year and we all agreed that would be a good idea. Our current membership status is: 148 members; 92 are in good standing, 56 are delinquent; Erin will be sending out delinquent emails in the next month. Erin is working on signing SCAMIT up for a PayPal account. They require that we verify our 501(c)(3) status which she is working on; once that is complete she hopes to have our account up and running later this year, [update: Our PayPpal account is now functional] We briefly discussed the PayPal transaction fee of 63 cents and how that would be covered. We decided that members who want to use PayPal to pay their membership dues can add the 63 cents to their total. We didn’t need a membership vote to enact this decision because we are not actually raising dues, we are only including a transaction fee for those members who decide to use PayPal. ACTION ITEM - Dean and Erin will work together to get a PayPal button added to the SCAMIT website. 6 Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 2 The next financial topic was account access - Larry still needs to be able to sign checks until the IPC is over; currently the signatories for SCAMIT are Larry and Erin. Once the IPC is complete, Larry will be removed as a signatory and Kelvin will be added. Vice President - Leslie Harris Leslie reviewed currently scheduled meetings. August will be amphipods at LACSD. September will be terebellids at the NHMLAC and Leslie has decided she is going to break terebellids in to groups and hold different meetings for each group. October is a meeting on digital photography lead by Dean and Leslie at the NHMLAC. As of right now there is nothing scheduled for November and December. Leslie thought December might be the perfect time for a general membership meeting combined with a Christmas lunch hosted by SCAMIT. Everyone present approved of the idea. However, that still leaves nothing for November. Leslie possibly has some experts lined up for next year; Bonnie Bain and her husband Fred, who is an expert on leeches; Kevin Kocot who is a professor at the University of Alabama and specializes in aplacophorans. Also, there will be a MARINe meeting at Cabrillo in February and Leslie proposed bringing Gretchen Lambert down, partially funded by SCAMIT; all officers approved this idea. Leslie is hoping to fill in other months with volunteers at the GM meeting in December. Kelvin offered the idea of notebook review meetings to prep for B’ 18. Leslie agreed and suggested the possibility of two meetings per month leading up to B’ 18 as the time approaches. We decided to cover those issues at the GM meeting and discuss groups that need review prior to B’ 18. Kelvin suggested approaching Austin Hendy (NHMLAC) about holding a meeting on scaphopods. And, Leslie mentioned that Susan Kidwell may be coming in to town and her talks are always interesting. Next up was a discussion regarding a project by Dr. Gustav Pauly. Dr. Pauly will be out in the fall of 2017 to talk to the Diversity Initiative of the Southern California Ocean (DISCO) team at the NHMLAC about his work on developing genetic marker identification tools for shallow marine inverts of Southern California. He wants to conduct a massive survey of west coast organisms; he’s starting in the north and the idea is we will start in the south, collaborating and meeting in the middle, figuratively and actually. He sees SCAMIT as key to the success of the project. SCAMIT is the “lynch pin” for the species database he will be generating. Dean then gave a brief overview of Dr. Pauly’s project and how it can benefit SCAMIT. Leslie mentioned that WoRMS is now putting efforts in to developing regional databases. Webmaster - Dean Pentcheff Dean has not yet done the redesign trial for the SCAMIT website. He stated we haven’t been keeping good statistics on how our site is being used. If we redesign our site using a package from a web host, statistics will be included. Toolbox - mollusk updates are in, but how do we want to handle the outdated hierarchy (built on edition 8). It brings up the question of how do we deal with higher level taxonomic changes in the Toolbox? 7 Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 2 Kelvin responded that we could pose this problem at the GM meeting. Can we collapse hierarchies? Or how do we want to deal with this? Toolbox hierarchy maintenance is a suggested subject for the GM meeting. Remote Access - we need to find out from people at the most restrictive agencies, what software and online options are available to them. Would they prefer, or have access to, voice only or voice and video? ACTION ITEM - Dean and Kelvin will create a survey and send it out to the various agencies to determine their abilities and desires. At this point Kelvin chimed in and stated that the BHL has contacted us and offered to archive our newsletters. A vote was taken and the officers agreed to allow this. BHL will need to work with Dean. We are hoping this should eliminate vulture sites. It was suggested to include anything that is already up on the web relating to our newsletters. Kelvin announced that 14 Sept 2017 will be the kick off meeting for B’ 18 at SCCWRP. Since not all the officers had seen the announcement he offered to forward the information to the Executive Committee. At this point it was after 4 pm so we voted to adjourn even though we hadn’t made it through the entire agenda. Leslie proposed we finish the meeting via Skype at a future date. Hopefully doing so before the B’ 18 kick off meeting, so we can have a series of proposals/ideas on how SCAMIT will fit in to the larger picture of the project. Publication Date: September 2017 July-August, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 2 Please visit the SCAMIT Website at: www.scamit.org SCAMIT OFFICERS If you need any other information concerning SCAMIT please feel free to contact any of the officers at their e-mail addresses: President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Kelvin Barwick (714)593-7475 Leslie Harris (213)763-3234 Megan Lilly (619)758-2336 Erin Oderlin (310)648-5477 kbarwick@ocsd. com lharris@nhm.org mlilly @sandiego. gov erin. oderlin@lacity. org The SCAMIT newsletter is published every two months and is distributed freely to members in good standing. Membership is $15 for an electronic copy of the newsletter, available via the web site at www.scamit.org, and $30 to receive a printed copy via USPS. Institutional membership, which includes a mailed printed copy, is $60. All correspondences can be sent to the Secretary at the email address above or to: SCAMIT PO Box 50162 Long Beach, CA 90815 Southern California Assocation of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 3 Amaeana sp A Harris LH4-061 3SFB RAS 2004 48a © Leslie Harris This Issue 11 SEPTEMBER 2017, TEREBELLIDAE, NHMLAC L. HARRIS LEAD, VINICIUS DA ROCHA MIRANDA, GUEST LECTURER.2 16 OCTOBER 2017, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY, NHMLAC; L. HARRIS & D. PENTCHEFF.5 BIBLIOGRAPHY.8 SCAMIT OFFICERS.9 The SCAMIT newsletter is not deemed to be a valid publication for formal taxonomic purposes Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 3 11 SEPTEMBER 2017, TEREBELLIDAE, NHMLAC, L. HARRIS LEAD, VINICIUS DA ROCHA MIRANDA, GUEST LECTURER Attendance: Ron Velarde, Veronica Rodriguez-Villanueva, Ricardo Martinez, CSD; Arturo Alvarez-Aguilar, UABC; Greg Lyon, Erin Oderlin, Jennifer Smolenski, CLAEMD; Brent Haggin, Norbert Lee, Bill Furlong, LACSD; Rob Gamber, Kelvin Barwick, OCSD; Tony Phillips, DCE. The business meeting started with upcoming meeting announcements. The next meeting will be Monday, October 16 th at the NHMLAC and will be on specimen photography with macro photography being demonstrated by Leslie Harris, and large scale photography being covered by Dean Pentcheff. In addition, on the software side, Kelvin Barwick will be giving a short presentation on Photoshop and Leslie will demonstrate how to use Lightroom. Participating members should bring stain, specimens they would like to photograph, the photo backgrounds that they currently use, and also take inventory of the type of photo equipment they use. Next Kelvin proposed a Toolbox review meeting for Tuesday, November 14 th at OCSD. He suggested we work on changing the Toolbox organization as the hierarchy is out of date and needs to be addressed. One suggestion would be to eliminate Class and Order from hierarchies and just have the Toolbox go straight from Phylum to Families. Kelvin asked - What polychaete families do we want to cover during the Toolbox review? Should we just go in alphabetical order? The goal of the meeting is to create a list of new things to add and a list of things to change. It was recognized that it would, most likely, take more than one meeting to complete the task. Members should submit literature and voucher sheets they want added to the Toolbox. The next question to be posed - Any ideas for next year’s meetings? Leslie replied that there will be a need for Bight’ 18 prep meetings. These will include reviewing literature (including grey literature), going over specific groups, and verifying specific specimens/vouchers. If you have any other suggestions please submit them to Leslie or Kelvin. Kelvin then presented a review of the QA section of the SCCWRP Bight’ 13 Benthic Report (Tables 7, 8, & 9) regarding abundance counts and proper identifications. He stated that overall we did very well but feels there is still room for improvement. One problem area revealed was Chaetodermatids. Scaphopod specimens for Katy Estes-Smargiassi are still being sought. Katy is an Assistant Collections Manager in Invertebrate Paleontology at the NHMLAC. She is working on the paleoecology of Pleistocene scaphopod communities of the Eastern Pacific. As part of this she is looking at modern fauna reported from the SCB, i.e., the SCAMIT Species List. She is also “interested more broadly in the taxonomy of scaphopods - how to identify species, whether species are valid, whether species should be synonymized, etc”. So if you have any specimens of scaphopods you’d like to donate, bring them to the October SCAMIT meeting or send them up with an attending colleague. And lastly, Tony announced that he has created a number of provisionals for Odostomids and Pyramidellids. More to follow in the future. UPCOMING MEETINGS Visit the SCAMIT website at: www.scamit.org for the latest upcoming meetings announcements. 2 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 3 With that it was time for the taxonomic portion of the meeting to begin. Our Guest Lecturer for the day was Vinicius da Rocha Miranda. His presentation was titled: Phylogenetic Relationship between the scale-worm families Sigalionidae & Pholoidae (Annelida: Aphroditiformia) Below are bullet points from his talk: • Aphroditiformia has 165 genera from 6, 7, or 8 families • Use chaetae as main synapomorphy • Pholoids (some species) do have branchiae and ctenidia • Some species of Sigalionids do have external palps and changes in internal vs. external may be due to fixation practices • Stylodes may be the same as papillae • Pisionidae nested genetically under Sigalionids Morphological characters useful for identification: • Prostomium • Buccal & proboscidial ornamentation • Lateral extensions • Nuchal organs & nuchal folds • Tentacular segments • Inner tentacular lamellae (see as a refraction of golden light from the cilia). Easy to see using Shirla stain because it defines edges where structures used to be • Tubercles and cirri on 3 rd segment (tubercles are harder than papillae) • Segmental papillae: dermic projections and nephridial projections • Cirri and associated modifications • Elytra ornamentation • Parapodial lobes: distribution • Copulatory organs • Ventral suckers (may only be present on males -in Brazilian specimens- for reproduction) • Parapodial glands • Notopodial chaetae • Ctenidia • Chaetal arrangement • Neuropodial chaetae • Longitudinal patch of pores 3 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 3 Vinicius briefly touched on larval development. The parapodial lobes gradually reduce/disappear on setigers 1-7 through development (juvenile to adult). He then discussed Pisione vs. Praegeria and characters used to separate them: • Pigmentation • Prostomium not fused • Triangular tip of buccal acicula • Cirriform or lacking ventral tentacular cirri • Lack of nephridial papillae Vimcius stated that Pisionids are from Peru and Chile. He hasn’t seen any from California. So far all of the California specimens identified as Pisionids are actually Praegerids. With Vimcius’s presentation complete it was time to move on to Leslie’s talk for the day: Terebellidae Grube, 1851; 1. Intro, Polycirrinae, Thelepodinae - By Leslie Harris, Kelvin Barwick, Dot Norris, Erica Keppel. Below are some primary points of interest from that presentation. • Terebellids use chemosensory receptors to differentiate between food particles and non¬ food particles. Non-food particles are used for tube building • Lateral lappets are an important feature: How big are they in relation to each other and in what position are they found (lateral, ventral, dorsal, or encircling)? Some species, when fixed, develop pseudo-lappets due to constriction, therefore one must be careful to differentiate between true (membranous) lappets and (muscular) folds • In abdominal sections (posterior end), neuropodia are situated on top of the body wall instead of protruding from it • For neurochaetae, the number of teeth in each row is an important character at the genus and species level • Uncini may be packed together so tightly that they appear as a double row, but in fact are just a single row. Uncini basal shafts are used to help the worm move up and down their tubes • An important characteristic is if glandular pads extend to the edge of the neuropodial cirri or if there is a gap • Important note: Branchiae are not always present and regenerated branchiae are always smaller when they grow back, therefore relative size could be misleading • Leslie cautioned us that to “identify small individuals, check the number of thoracic chaetigers and types of chaetae; that may get you to genus” • Glandular areas develop with age; therefore juveniles will have different stain patterns than adults. Staining is reliable for “good” sized adults. In terms of staining: Either the ventral pads wifi be glandular or the lateral pads will be glandular, not both • Polycirrinae has 2 or 3 types of tentacles (whereas most other subfamilies of terebellids have a single type of tentacle) 4 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 3 • Poly cirrus can sacrifice their head and regenerate a new one. According to Leslie, “This renders any key couplet based on absolute number of thoracic chaetigers useless” • Check L. Lovell’s Polycirrus table (2006) in order to not confuse Polycirrus sp OC1 with Polycirrus sp B • Leslie examined character differences between Thelepus setosus (European description) and what she calls Thelepus sp E (from Vancouver, B.C.). See: Thelepus setosus- sp- E_LH_9Sept2017 table. This still needs to be cross checked with southern California species And with that, a long Terebellid-filled day was complete. 16 OCTOBER 2017, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY, NHMLAC; L. HARRIS & D. PENTCHEFF Attendance: Unfortunately attendance was over-looked and not taken. The business meeting began with the normal announcement of upcoming meetings. The next meeting will be an Annelid Toolbox Review and everyone is asked to bring their notebooks and/ or electronic files. The goal is to file share and add, change, and edit the Toolbox. The meeting will be held on November 14 th at OCSD. Leslie then announced that SCAMIT may be moving towards two meetings a month to prepare for Bight ’ 18, in order to standardize identifications between labs and taxonomists. The two meetings in a single month will most likely focus on different taxonomic groups, therefore most members wouldn’t need to attend a meeting more than once a month. The Annual General Membership meeting will be held at SCCWRP on Monday, December 13 th . SCAMIT will be providing lunch. We will be discussing the future of SCAMIT, preparing for Bight ’ 18, and updating the Constitution. We were told that the Smithsonian barcoding project may be interested in presenting their work at a future SCAMIT meeting. With that it was time for the photography portion of the meeting. The meeting began with helpful reference sources being listed: • SCAMIT Newsletter May-Aug 2010; vol. 29, no 1&2 on Macro photography • Sturm, C. F., Pearce, T. A., & Valdes, A. (Eds.). (2006). The mollusks: a guide to their study collection, and preservation. Universal-Publishers. Peter started by speaking on how he photographs the larval stages of zooplankton. He uses a dissecting scope with a Nikon 5100 for live specimen video (use a 4k if you want slow motion). To view organisms individually he suggests putting them into a depression slide with a dark field as the background. Initially everything is videos and afterwards he pulls out still shots from the videos. Tim was then asking about tide pool imagery. He specifically needs help with over-exposed pictures. Kelvin explained that using imaging software it is easier to fix an under-exposed picture than an over-exposed one. 5 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 3 Leslie then suggested diffusing the light instead of using the harsh glare of the sun. Create a photo tent or use a white umbrella (with one strobe outside and one strobe inside of the photo tent.) It was also suggested that if the camera is placed underwater and angled upwards towards the underside of the water’s surface, with the flash on, it will create a mirrored image of the object being photographed on the underside of the water’s surface. Kelvin had the floor next to discuss OCSD’s photoscopes, old and new. Although the original set up has been recently replaced with a more sophisticated system, he felt that it, (patterned after what had been done at the San Diego Lab), was a good-affordable system. This was a Wild- Heerbrugg M-400 Photomakroskop® with a Nikon D80 DSLR mounted on top. The M-400 was designed specifically for micro-photography and therefore provides a straight light path from objective to CCD. It is adaptable to a number of camera mounts, making it upgradeable. With a built-in iris, it allows for increased depth of field at higher magnifications. However, it needs high light levels to illuminate the subject. The camera view-finder makes it difficult to achieve fine focus. Additional software and a dedicated computer are needed to allow for remote control. You can not use the camera’s built-in lens controls on DSLR, e.g., f-stop, autofocus. Without a dedicated computer, there is an additional step needed to download images. It is limited to macro images only. For images from the compound microscope the same camera was used with a Martin® Microscope adapter. Within the last year this system was replaced with a photo-microscopic system from Leica. It includes the Leica MCI65c dissecting scope with computer controlled lights and focus and optional lighted base. Also included is a Leica DM2500 compound scope with both brightfield and DIC illumination but no computer controls. They both share one MCI70 five-megapixel digital microscope camera. The camera and dissecting scope are controlled with proprietary software. Along with the control software, there are modules for annotation (auto-calibrated scale bars), morphometries (size, counts, areas, etc.) and Z-stacking photomontage. Kelvin then gave a “quick guide to Photoshop” presentation. He contended that many in attendance were like him - intimidated by all the capabilities of Adobe Photoshop, and felt that most explanations offered in the past have been overly-technical and not practical for our day to day needs, which are to capture serviceable images for communicating electronically with colleagues. With that assumption Kelvin shared the workflow that he routinely uses. Briefly, the steps are listed here: 1. Make a copy of the original image; work with the copy 2. Crop and rotate image 3. Adjust Levels (Ctrl - L) for light and brightness controls (works best with slightly under¬ exposed images) 4. Use Unsharpen Mask to sharpen the image (Threshold set from 4 to 6; this is far superior to simple Sharpen tools) 6 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 3 Levels Preset: Default Channel: RGB Input Levels: 1.00 255 ( 0K ) Cancel Auto Options... * 0 f D Preview Output Levels: 255 At this point Leslie chimed in and added that it is best to work with RAW images (though not all software programs can use RAW images). If you have to work with TIFFs and/or JPEGs, use TIFFs over JPEGs. JPEGs constantly lose data when you start to edit them. A tip for adjusting Levels (step 3 above) - bring right hand “adjuster” to the first point of data, and then adjust using the middle “adjuster”. It gets you a more realistic color of the organisms (see screen shot). Brent Haggin then briefly touched on the LACSD system which uses a Nikon SMZ 1000. The floor was turned back over to Leslie so she could discuss photography of live organisms. She does not use a trinocular, she uses a Martin adapter which fits through the ocular. It comes with a diopter; therefore she fine focuses through the camera instead of the microscope. She uses the adapter in the left ocular. It is a universal standard that the left ocular stays stationary, while the right ocular slides. She suggests using a GFC syringe filter tip to clean photographing solution. Surface particulates will distort images. Particles/sediment grains under the organism refract/ reflect/absorb light from the organism and distort the color. Black glass is the best photo dish, or you can stack dishes in a “double boiler” set up, with black velvet in the bottom dish filled with water up to the underside of the top dish. Use sub-stage lighting for transparent organisms or structures like chaetae and appendages as this still allows the natural color of the organism to come through. Use the least amount of water possible to cover the animal since the surface tension of water will keep the appendages from floating up. Use a coverslip/microscope slide to mount organisms to the bottom of the dish and just barely cover the top of the coverslip with water. The smaller the dish, the smaller the volume of water, and subsequently, greater surface tension. She uses a fixed fiber optic light source with 2 strobes and she mostly uses side light and sub-stage lighting. For flatworms, however, use only sub-stage lighting. She recommends, if using only fiber optic lights, take photographs with longer exposures. But the opposite is true (shorter exposure) if using strobe lights. Strobe lighting allows you to capture more color in your organisms. Sub-stage lighting pulls out structures in your images, whereas light from above gives you better color. When taking pictures on a compound microscope, try using a fiber optic light source with one arm shining straight down and the other one shooting horizontal (across); it creates more definition and 3D images. 7 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 3 Dean Pentcheff was next and discussed photostacking: • He uses a photo diverter with a stadium lighting system • Slide the objective to align one ocular over the viewing area • 10 photos per cm 3 organism • External light at < 45° will not hit the bottom and reflect the light back into the lens • Tend to shoot at F11 stop • Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are professional photography software packages (about $50 each) Leslie mentioned that Lightroom allows you to edit a stack of photos all at once. Which drove Kelvin to ask - How do you organize photo metadata? Leslie replied that she uses keywords attached to each photograph and then inputs them into a database... though many people don’t have access to photo databases. And the last note of the day was that XPF and IPTC files for images capture different metadata are the least problematic in that they are nearly universal and least likely to be lost or modified by software that you may be using or as technology changes. BIBLIOGRAPHY Gillet, David J., Lovell, Lawrence L., Schiff, Kenneth, C. 2017. Southern California Bight 2013 Regional Monitoring Program: Volume VI. Benthic Infauna. SCCWRP Technical Report 971. pp 300. http://ftp.sccwrp.org/pub/download/DOCUMENTS/TechnicalReports/971_ B13BenthicInfauna.pdf 8 Publication Date: April 2018 September-October, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 3 Please visit the SCAMIT Website at: www.scamit.org SCAMIT OFFICERS If you need any other information concerning SCAMIT please feel free to contact any of the officers at their e-mail addresses: President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Kelvin Barwick (714)593-7475 Leslie Harris (213)763-3234 Megan Lilly (619)758-2336 Erin Oderlin (310)648-5477 kbarwick@ocsd. com lharris@nhm.org mlilly @sandiego. gov erin. oderlin@lacity. org The SCAMIT newsletter is published every two months and is distributed freely to members in good standing. Membership is $15 for an electronic copy of the newsletter, available via the web site at www.scamit.org, and $30 to receive a printed copy via USPS. Institutional membership, which includes a mailed printed copy, is $60. All correspondences can be sent to the Secretary at the email address above or to: SCAMIT PO Box 50162 Long Beach, CA 90815 Southern California Assocation of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 4 Back Row from left to right: Larry Lovell, Tony Phillips, Dean Pentcheff, Gabe Rodriguez, Brent Haggin, Mike McCarthy, Cody Larsen, Craig Campbell, Rob Gamber, Ernest Ruckman, Danny Tang, Ben Ferraro Front Row from left to right: Kelvin Barwick, Don Cadien, Joanne Linnenbrink, Megan Lilly, Norbert Lee, Wendy Enright, Leslie Harris, Erin Oderlin, Jennifer Smolenski, Terra Petry, Greg Lyon This Issue 14 NOVEMBER 2017, POLYCHAETE TOOLBOX REVIEW, OCSD, K. BARWICK.2 11 DECEMBER 2017, SCAMIT ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING, SCCWRP.3 SCAMIT OFFICERS.7 The SCAMIT newsletter is not deemed to be a valid publication for formal taxonomic purposes. Publication Date: April 2018 November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 4 14 NOVEMBER 2017, POLYCHAETE TOOLBOX REVIEW, OCSD, K. BARWICK Attendance: Kelvin Barwick, Rob Gamber, Ernest Ruckman, OCSD; Jennifer Smolenski, CLAEMD; Larry Lovell, Tony Phillips, DCE; Matt Nelson, Gabriel Rodriguez, Ron Velarde, CSD; Bill Furlong, Brent Haggin, LACSD. Remote attendees: Ricardo Martinez-Lara, Veronica Rodriguez-Villanueva, CSD; Dot Norris, Retired. The day began with a discussion of the upcoming Annual Membership meeting scheduled for December 11 th at SCCWRP. A few agenda items are: • Major and minor changes to the members • Officers will present reports on the current standing of SCAMIT • The Species Review Committee Chair will present an update on the new and upcoming Species List • Future meetings will be scheduled Other items of interest were: • SCCWRP, in conjunction with the Smithsonian, may present a barcoding project that could be of interest to SCAMIT • Members can now request receipts from SCAMIT through PayPal • SCAMIT has authorized the Biodiversity Heritage Library to upload the newsletters The main subject of the meeting was a review of the polychaete portion of the SCAMIT Toolbox. Kelvin reminded everyone that the eventual goal is to have a SCAMIT Taxonomic Database with links to all taxa. But for the present we continue to use the Toolbox and must strive to keep it as current and useful as possible. Kelvin’s first question was - How should the organization of hierarchies be handled? Should we eliminate all higher phyla and just stick to phylum and families? This line of speculation caused Brent Haggin to ask, how will we handle in-house provisionals? Maybe there should be a separate tab underneath each taxon? The majority of the meeting was spent going through individual species of polychaetes, one by one, reviewing each document attached to each taxon link. Documents were appraised for quality of information, scan quality, and relevance. To help with this process, taxonomists brought their personal and lab notebooks (filled with voucher sheets, character tables, diagrams, images, etc.), offering up new documents if they were helpful and revisions to existing documents if they were out of date. The taxon documents were either left as is, flagged to be updated/revised, noted to be switched out with a better scanned copy, marked if the taxonomic hierarchy needed to be changed, or identified for removal. The taxonomists used a working excel spreadsheet, created by Kelvin from a down load readily available on the web site as a link at the bottom of the list, to track changes (or non-changes) to be made to each document, the responsible party assigned to handle that change, and the details as to what that change will be. The taxonomists also reviewed files’ (at the bottom of the Toolbox page), and decided to delete some 2 some of the ‘n UPCOMING MEETINGS Visit the SCAMIT website at: www.scamit.org for the latest upcoming meetings announcements. constitution will be presented and voted upon by attendant Publication Date: April 2018 November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 4 files and upgrade some to the actual Toolbox. Out of 497 documents in the Toolbox 108 were reviewed. Kelvin will collect all promised material along with the list of changes which will eventually be given to our webmaster to update the Toolbox. Another meeting will be scheduled to continue the review process. 11 DECEMBER 2017, SCAMIT ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING, SCCWRP Attendance: Kelvin Barwick, Mike McCarthy, Danny Tang, Ben Ferraro, Rob Gamber, Ernest Ruckman, OCSD; Megan Lilly, Wendy Enright, Katie Beauchamp, CSD; Dean Pentcheff, Leslie Harris, NHMLAC; Larry Lovell, Tony Phillips, DCE; Brent Haggin, Norbert Lee, Terra Petry, Don Cadien, LACSD; JoAnne L inn enbr ink , Cody Larsen, Craig Campbell, Jennifer Smolenksi, Greg Lyon, Erin Oderlin, CLAEMD; Kelvin started the day by talking about SCAMIT’s new relationship with the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). The BHL will now have SCAMIT newsletters available in its collections. As for upcoming meetings, SCUM XXII will be held 27 Jan 2018 at the Scripps Benthic Invertebrates Collections hosted by Greg Rouse and Charlotte Seid. As of this moment during opening remarks, no SCAMIT meetings are scheduled after this one but we are hoping to change that during today’s meeting. Larry Lovell then had the floor and mentioned that he brought a few boxes of polychaete reprints, some of which were donations from Beth Horvath, and people could peruse and help themselves at lunch time or after the meeting. Wendy Enright announced next year’s WSM/AMS meetings will be held 19-22 June 2018, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Don Cadien then discussed his library donation to SCAMIT. He was hoping the library would sell and raise funds for SCAMIT. However, it did not find a buyer and is currently residing in Don’s office at Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD). Don made the sad announcement that he is most likely retiring in the next year and so the library will need to move to a new location, whether for new ownership (sold) or storage. He felt we needed to discuss where it should go and how it can benefit SCAMIT. The entire literature collection is catalogued in EndNote and is immensely valuable, representing Don’s long and illustrious career as a marine biologist, naturalist extraordinaire, and bibliophile. There was some discussion about advertising it outside the SCAMIT community. Maybe we could post it on various phyla list servers such as CrustL etc. There was also talk of sorting the collection in to different disciplines/phyla and offering it in sections. At this point representatives from the City of Los Angeles Environmental Monitoring Division (CLAEMD) offered to store it. We may still sell it but it will reside at CLAEMD for the foreseeable future. Don said there are professional dealers who would sell it, but he hates to go that route because they will jack up the price and make it less available. Kelvin made a motion, and it was seconded and approved, that we take CLAEMD up on their offer to store Don’s library. If we haven’t sold it in a year, by default, CLAEMD gets to keep it in perpetuity. Speaking of literature, Larry announced he has 15 years of issues of The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, and 10 years of Southern California Academy of Science (SCAS) bulletins. They are stored in boxes and he is willing to donate them to SCAMIT. We thought of advertising them on the SCAMIT list server, and other options. Ultimately it was tabled and the SCAMIT officers were nominated to decide how to handle the donation. 3 Publication Date: April 2018 November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 4 Leslie sadly announced that Gene Ruff passed away on 26 November 2017. She talked about what a nice person Gene had been and how generous he was with sharing knowledge and his unfailing optimism. He was very knowledgeable about polychaetes of the west coast. Tony Phillips agreed that Gene had always been willing to share knowledge and lend help where needed. He worked as a consultant for years with many CA consulting and research agencies and will be sorely missed. With the general business over it was time to address one of the primary tasks of this annual membership meeting - SCAMIT Constitution revisions. Kelvin passed out a hard copy of the 2008 version with line numbers. Here is a list of the most significant changes proposed: • Article 4: Dues - Change wording so that dues can be determined by a vote of the Executive Committee • Article 4: Dues - Change wording that electronic members will be “notified” when the newsletter is available on the website; changing from “received” since we no longer send the newsletter out via email • Article 9: Amendments: - Change wording so that it reads “proposed actions will be emailed to the membership”, instead of “mailed” to the membership; change it in Article 10 as well • Article 12: remove “https:” from the website name • Change the word “mail” to “email” throughout the document; (The membership form will be updated so that there’s a check box for mail only for those who still don’t have access to email) • Fix the page numbers in the Constitution During the discussion a number of additional changes, not enumerated here, were discussed. All proposed changes were approved by a unanimous vote. Also, it was noted that we need to clarify what exclusive benefits come with a paid SCAMIT membership. For example, inclusion in the SCAMIT General Topics list server. It was remarked that this, as well as other benefits, could be included on the membership application as well as added to a “Benefits” section of the website. A group photo was taken to put on the cover of this newsletter. Then we broke for lunch provided by SCAMIT. Thanks to members Danny Tang and Ben Ferraro for arranging and retrieving lunch. With the Constitution edits completed it was time to hear from our Treasurer, Erin Oderlin. She announced she has successfully established a PayPal account for SCAMIT. Members who wish to renew via PayPal will incur the PayPal fees which are 2.2% plus a .30 cent transaction fee. The current membership dues structure, if one chooses to use PayPal , are as follows: • Electronic member - $20.74 • Hard copy member - $36.07 • Institutional member - $66.62 4 Publication Date: April 2018 November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 4 We are working on getting a PayPal option on the website. Our current goal is to get it functional on the SCAMIT website before May 2018 (next year’s membership renewal month). Erin also shared the annual SCAMIT Treasury Summary which is attached at the end of this newsletter. With that it was time for a Species List Review Committee (SLRC) Update. We reviewed action items from the last meeting and commented on progress to date. Edition 12 of the List is still being reviewed and has no date certain for publication. Dean Pentcheff (SCAMIT webmaster) asked members to send him suggestions for any changes to the pdf version of the Species List. Tony Phillips asked for color codes on taxa; Larry Lovell thought an index (at front of the document) to Families within Phyla would be helpful; Don Cadien and Brent Haggin suggested being able to hover the pointer over a taxa and its systematic hierarchy would be shown. The next subject to be considered was the impending Bight’ 18 project. Don started by querying members if we wanted to have two meetings per month leading up to B’ 18 in order to standardize our approach. At first we all agreed but upon further discussion we decided that the 2 meetings/ month schedule is more important once the B’ 18 samples are back and being processed as it gives taxonomists opportunities to bring problem specimens to meetings for review and assistance. The molecular discussion then began, as it has with the last few Bight projects. The Smithsonian has offered to run molecular analysis on any animals sent their way. Dean Pentcheff chimed in and let us know that the NHMLAC is partnering with the Smithsonian and it might be simpler to just deposit the animals to the NHMLAC; in this way the animals will stay on the West Coast. This then led to a discussion on the logistics of taking extra samples to be preserved in ETOH, sorted, and identified by participating agencies and taxonomists. This is most likely not going to happen as there is no money being offered to offset the cost of taking and processing additional samples. If there was money available even just for the taxonomic identification portion, in order to hire retired taxonomists, it could be a reality, but no one is holding their breath. On a positive note regarding molecular analysis, the DNA results from the Bight ‘13 trawl animals are complete and can be found in the BOLD database. It was asked if there was going to be a specialty taxonomy option for B’ 18. The general feeling was that there would be no funding set aside for this, but there has been no definitive answer as of yet. On the chance that specialty taxonomy is funded, people were asked to suggest taxa that they feel either need to be addressed as specialty taxonomy or that might need pre-B’ 18 meetings to try to standardize our approach. Megan Lilly suggested the following groups: • Anthozoa (specialty taxonomy) • Apodus holothuroids (pre-B ’ 18 meeting) • Trawl inverts (pre-B’ 18 meeting if other members feel it is necessary) • Hoplonemertea (specialty taxonomy) • Heteronemertea (pre-B ’ 18 meeting) 5 Publication Date: April 2018 November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No. 4 Vice President Leslie Harris had the floor next. We talked about the logistics of having 2 meetings per month and suggested not having the same phyla twice in the same month so people are spared from having to attend two meetings a month. Before the scheduling began we agreed that the bimonthly meetings would be scheduled “if needed” but for the moment our goal for the day was to schedule monthly meetings throughout the next 12 months. Kelvin took this opportunity to remind everyone that Toolbox review meetings are pertinent and important prior to the processing of B’ 18 samples. It was decided that most meetings should be a combination of taxonomy teaching, and Toolbox and Species List review. And with that we began scheduling the next year’s meetings. • 22 January 2018 - Anthozoans at OCSD; M. Lilly • 5 February 2018 - Scaphopods at the NHMLAC Invertebrate Paleontology Collections; Katy Estes-Smargiassi • 21 & 22 March 2018 - Ascidian workshop at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium Dr. Gretchen Lambert • 16 April 2018 - Phoxocephalids workshop at CSD; D. Pasko • 7 May 2018 - Mollusca, problems and review, at OCSD; K. Barwick • 11 June 2018 - Orbiniidae, Leitoscoloplos (Brent Haggin) and Scoloplos (Ashley Loveland), general review, at NHMLAC • 20 August 2018 - Terebellids Part II at NHMLAC; Leslie Harris • 10 September 2018 - Holothuroid review - apodus conventions; Apostichopus, general questions or concerns, Toolbox/Species List review at TBD; M. Lilly • 15 October 2018 - Spionidae/Polydorinae, at NHMLAC; L. Harris and T. Phillips • 5 November 2018 - Nemertea problems, at OCSD or CSD; M. Lilly? • December - Annual General Membership meeting There was as brief discussion about having other “outside experts” come in and give a workshop or presentation on their specialties. One suggestion was Megan Schwartz who works on nemerteans of this coast. She is based in Oregon/Coos Bay and if she can provide tools to help “working” taxonomists SCAMIT could look in to funding a visit; it would most likely be after July 2018. And with that we adjourned a productive SCAMIT meeting. 6 Publication Date: April 2018 November-December, 2017 SCAMIT Newsletter Vol. 36 No 4 Please visit the SCAMIT Website at: www.scamit.org SCAMIT OFFICERS If you need any other information concerning SCAMIT please feel free to contact any of the officers at their e-mail addresses: President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Kelvin Barwick (714)593-7475 Leslie Harris (213)763-3234 Megan Lilly (619)758-2336 Erin Oderlin (310)648-5477 kbarwick@ocsd. com lharris@nhm.org mlilly @sandiego. gov erin. oderlin@lacity. org The SCAMIT newsletter is published every two months and is distributed freely to members in good standing. Membership is $15 for an electronic copy of the newsletter, available via the web site at www.scamit.org, and $30 to receive a printed copy via USPS. Institutional membership, which includes a mailed printed copy, is $60. All correspondences can be sent to the Secretary at the email address above or to: SCAMIT PO Box 50162 Long Beach, CA 90815 SCAMIT Treasury Summary 2016-2017 Below is the treasurer’s report for 2016-2017. Once again we did not raise dues thanks to so much continued support from all of you! We have 148 members across the US and worldwide. SCAMIT awarded one publication grant this past year to Kelvin Barwick for publishing: A new species of the genus Policordia (Bivalvia, Verticordioidea , Lyonsiellidae) from off the coast of southern California. Please help get the word out that these funds are available. As stipulated in our grant policy, we have $7,601.83 or 25% of our operating budget of $30,407.34, which does not include database funds, available for publication grants this year. The taxonomic database support tools on our website were maintained by our webmaster. The database expense totaled $405.00. We have been doing a great job catching up on newsletter publications; therefore, that expense is higher than in past years, totaling $678.28. Account Balances (as of 4/30/17) Checking Certificate of Deposit Database Fund Total $ 20,37731 $ 10,030.03 $ 244.55 $ 30,651.89 Income Expenses 2016-2017 Membership dues $ 2,400.00 D. Cadien Bergen Microscope Purchase $ 1,000.00 Interest from CD i 4.35 Total $ 3,404.35 Meeting refreshments $ 53.53 Annual Member Luncheon $ 308.02 Christmas Luncheon $ 300.68 2017 PO Box $ 134.00 Check Order $ 27.00 Adobe In Design for NL creation $ 239.88 Website Content & Design $ 405.00 Kelvin Barwick Publication Grant $ 311.13 Newsletters (printing/postage) $ 678.28 Total $ 2,457.52