Fei Xia
Department of Integrated Bioscience, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8561, Chiba, Japan
Cheng Yang
College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China
School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Min Liu
College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China
Lan Liu
School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Xinqing Zheng
Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology Conservation and Restoration, Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen 361005, China
Observation and Research Station of Island and Coastal Ecosystem in the Taiwan Strait, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beihai 536015, China
Xinming Liu
Institute of Marine Drugs, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning 530200, China
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Marine Drugs, Nanning 530200, China
University Engineering Research Center of High-efficient Utilization of Marine Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources, Nanning 530200, China
[We follow the code of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, taxonomic papers with new species/genus descriptions will not have early view version.]
Communicated by Chaolun Allen Chen
The genus Tubastraea Lesson, 1830 comprises azooxanthellate corals commonly known as sun corals. Based on specimens collected from Dongshan Island, southeastern China, we describe a new species, Tubastraea candidiflora sp. nov. The species is distinguished from most congeners by the combination of pure white tentacles, a Pourtalès plan, a phaceloid to weakly branching colony form, and strongly differentiated costae. Pairwise comparisons of three commonly used markers (COI, IGR, and rDNA) show substantial rDNA divergence from congeners (p-distance = 2.61–6.09%). Phylogenetic analyses of the concatenated three-marker dataset recover the Dongshan specimens as a distinct lineage, and an independent UCE phylogenomic dataset recovers the same clade with strong support. Together, the morphological and molecular evidence supports T. candidiflora sp. nov. as a distinct species and expands current knowledge of Tubastraea diversity in subtropical China.
