Hydroides of the World

About this book

Serpulid polychaetes are a unique and highly specialised group of marine segmented worms that have adapted to inhabiting self-secreted calcareous tubes attached to a wide range of hard substrates. These animals are found across all depths and habitats of the world's oceans, and some form mutually beneficial associations with live corals. The genus Hydroides is of special concern and importance, as it is not only the largest, but also one of the most ecologically and economically important groups of marine invertebrates because it includes notorious biofoulers and common bioinvaders that travel around the world hitchhiking on ships' hulls.

This is the first fully illustrated guide to this notorious serpulid genus of calcareous tubeworms, providing a comprehensive diagnostic treatment of all known species of the genus Hydroides. This important reference provides reliable identification tools to distinguish tubeworms from potential alien invaders that constantly arrive from overseas and threaten maritime transport, trade and mariculture.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Tubes
Chapter 3. History of studies
Chapter 4. Reproduction, development and life history
Chapter 5. Ontogeny: reversible asymmetry, compensatory regeneration and duplicity
Chapter 6. Economic and ecological impacts
Chapter 7. Barcoding, phylogeny and genome structure
Chapter 8. Biogeography
Chapter 9. Methods of collecting, examination, preservation and identification
Chapter 10. Diagnostic characters used for identification
Chapter 11. Key to the species of Hydroides worldwide
Chapter 12. Taxonomic account

Abbreviations of institutions where type material is deposited
Glossary
References
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Elena Kupriyanova is a Senior Research Scientist at The Australian Museum, whose research interests are centred on taxonomy, biodiversity, systematics, phylogeny, life history, reproduction, and evolution of marine invertebrates, especially of the polychaete family Serpulidae (calcareous tubeworms). Yanan Sun is a research student in the Marine Ecology Group at Macquarie University, Australia. Eunice Wong is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA. Harry ten Hove is an annelidologist working in the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands.