Abstracts for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2-6 January 2002
ONLINE BIOGRAPHICAL DATABASE OF TAXONOMISTS OF SEA ANEMONES
Dan Atwater (iamdan@ukans.edu) and Daphne G. Fautin
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.
As part of a taxonomic database of sea anemones, I am developing
a module dedicated to anemone taxonomists. Most of those taxonomists
are now dead. I am gathering anecdotes about and biographies of them
through library research and contact with people who have knowledge of them.
For living taxonomists, I seek all of this information, along with more
traditional information that can be found in their curriculum vitae, such
as their educational backgrounds and professional histories.
I strongly encourage anybody with knowledge of any of these people to submit it to me.
This is all part of a larger database that will allow users to search for the species
those taxonomists described, the papers they wrote, and museums in which they deposited specimens.
Users will also be linked to information on others in the database with
whom the person of interest collaborated, or other taxonomists who named species after the person of interest.
People after whom species in the database were named - e.g. Robert Falcon Scott - may also be included.
All of these data are accessed and displayed using ColdFusion software, which directly queries the database,
and writes each taxonomist’s web page "on the fly."
This research was supported by NSF grant DEB99-78106 to Daphne G. Fautin as part of the program Partnerships to Enhance Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET)
THE DIVERSITY OF KOREAN SEA ANEMONES (CNIDARIA: ACTINIARIA)
Ha-Rim Cha1,2, Daphne Gail Fautin1, and Jun-Im Song2
1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of
Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, U.S.A. 2 Department of Biological Science, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 120-750,
Korea
The purpose of this study was to investigate the regional distribution
of Korean actiniarians and to evaluate the frequency of occurrence of
each species in Korea. Specimens were collected at 75 localities on the
coast of the Korean peninsula and islands from 1962 to 2000. They were
deposited in the Natural History Museum of Ewha Womans University, Seoul,
Korea. For this project, the 19 most abundant species, which comprised
around half of the collected specimens, were studied. The distribution of
actiniarians was analyzed relative to four regions defined by current
patterns - East Sea, South Sea, Yellow Sea, and southern part of Cheju-do.
Each of those areas has a characteristic actiniarian fauna. However, the
most widespread species occur in all four regions; they are Anthopleura
kurogane, A. midori, and Haliplanella luciae.
This research was supported by the MOST through National Research
Program (2000) for Woman's University (No. 00-B-WB-06-A-06) and US NSF
grant 9978106 (in the program Partnerships to Enhance Expertise in
Taxonomy (PEET)).
WHAT’S IN A NAME? TAXONOMY, USAGE AND CIRCUMSCRIPTION IN THE GENUS ANTHOPLEURA (CNIDARIA: ANTHOZOA: ACTINIARIA)
Marymegan Daly (dalym@ku.edu)
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.
Nomenclature evolves, as the circumscription, composition, and application of names adapt to the knowledge and needs of scientists. Taxonomic boundaries also evolve, as additional information about anatomy, life history and biology are incorporated into taxonomic circumscriptions. Discrepancies between the way a name is used and the intention of the original author can lead to confusion about the diversity and variability of a species. In the sea anemone genus Anthopleura, changes in nomenclature and circumscription have led to incongruity between the attributes defining the genus and the attributes of its nominal species. Inconsistent generic nomenclature, coupled with vague or incomplete original descriptions, has resulted in confusion and to the incorrect application of names. I explore the impact of various generic criteria on the composition and concept of Anthopleura, and illustrate how discrepancies between practical usage of a name and the actual circumscription of a species can confound the interpretation of physiological, ecological and phylogenetic research. This research is funded by NSF-PEET grant DEB 9978106 to D.G. Fautin.
