Description of <i>Aurelia pseudosolida</i> sp. nov. (Scyphozoa, Ulmaridae) from the Adriatic Sea
2022
Rade Garić | Mirna Batistić
Until 2021, the genus <i>Aurelia</i> contained eleven described species (WoRMS, 2020), with many genetic species still awaiting a formal description. In 2021, ten new species of <i>Aurelia</i> were described almost solely from genetic data in a novel attempt to use genetic characters as diagnostic characters for species descriptions, leaving seven genetic species still undescribed. Here we present the description of a new <i>Aurelia</i> species from the Adriatic Sea using an integrative taxonomy approach, i.e., employing molecular as well as morphological characteristics in order to describe this new <i>Aurelia</i> species. The species is described based on a single medusa sampled from the town of Rovinj (Croatia), North Adriatic, amidst combined blooms of the ctenophore <i>Mnemiopsis leidy</i> and cnidarian <i>Aurelia solida</i> in the summer of 2020. Based on genetic data, the newly described <i>Aurelia pseudosolida</i> sp. nov. has never been sequenced in any of the previous investigations of the molecular diversity of <i>Aurelia</i>. This is the second species belonging to Discomedusae described from the North Adriatic in little more than half a decade, which could be yet another indication of the susceptibility of the North Adriatic to proliferation of non-indigenous gelatinous species, especially if we take into account historical as well as recent blooms of suspected non-indigenous gelatinous species such as <i>Muggiaea atlantica</i>, <i>Aurelia solida</i>, <i>Mawia benovici</i> and <i>Mnemiopsis leidy</i>.
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