NSU Currents Fall 2014 Newsletter - Volume XXV, Issue 2

3 OC Faculty Member Participates in Philippines Marine Biodiversity Expedition OC professor James Thomas , Ph.D., participated in the 2014 Verde Island Passage Expedition to the Philippines. ANational Science Foundationgrant to the California Academy of Sciences funded the expedition. The expedition lasted seven weeks and included sample sites on each side of the deep Cape Verde passage, which is suspected to be a significant biogeographic barrier. More than 165 sites were sampled in the Mabini/Tingloy, Calatagan, and Lubang regions. During the Mabini part of the expedition, Thomas discovered two new species of commensal amphipod crustaceans that are quite different from other known Pacific species. The Mabini part of the trip’s dive boats—called bankas— are locally crafted vessels adapted to local conditions. Hewn from a single large log with bamboo outriggers, they are powered by four-cylinder Toyota car engines, complete with clutch and stick shift. Professor Edits Journal’s Special Issue Banka dive boat in the Philippines One of the new species of commensal amphipods discovered living inside the tunicate Polycarpa aurata . This April, Bernhard Riegl , Ph.D., OC professor, together with Georgios Tsounis, Ph.D., of the Center for Marine Tropical Ecology in Bremen, edited a special issue on coral reef sustainability and its challenges in the Elsevier journal Current Opinions in Environmental Sustainability . Twenty review articles examined issues ranging from socioeconomic factors of degradation to evolutionary change and biological adaptability. Lasiognathus dinema Detail from Lasiognathus dinema Researchers Identify New Fish Species A new species of deep-sea anglerfish was discovered and identified by Tracey Sutton , Ph.D., OC associate professor, and Ted Pietsch, Ph.D., from the University of Washington. They have named the new species Lasiognathus dinema and have drafted a formal description that will be submitted to the journal Copeia .